


Off Trail

by SarahEverton



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Angst, Engagement, F/F, Hiking, Horror, Hurt Alex Danvers, Hurt Maggie Sawyer, Hurt/Comfort, Psychological Torture, Survival, and other things, there's a bear
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-15
Updated: 2017-07-16
Packaged: 2018-11-14 12:50:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 23
Words: 36,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11208438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SarahEverton/pseuds/SarahEverton
Summary: A week-long getaway to celebrate their engagement turns into a fight for survival, after an accident leaves Alex and Maggie trapped, hunted and stalked. (Sanvers, set after 2x22)





	1. Chapter One

"Okay, I think I've got-…  _Sunscreen!_ Did you bring sunscreen?!"

The sudden screech of her girlfriend through the apartment made Maggie laugh, as she leaned back and flicked the page of the book she was currently reading. Of course, that didn't exactly help her case, and though she tried to cover up the fact that she had been reading, she wasn't fast enough.

Because as Alex stuck her head out of the bedroom, her eyes widened. "How can you be  _reading_  when we're trying to pack?!"

"Babe, you know how this thing goes, right?" Maggie raised an eyebrow. "I pack, you pack, you panic, you  _unpack_  everything again, you start making lists that don't make sense, drag me into it, get annoyed when I have  _no idea_  what you're talking about, and pack everything up again."

Alex grunted something inaudible, as she headed back into the bedroom. Maggie shook her head with an amused grin. "Keep it classy, Danvers."

"You know, this is  _your_  getaway too. I wouldn't want you to spend the entire trip sunburnt and complaining about it!" Alex yelled. Maggie scoffed. "When have I ever complained?"

Another huff from the other side of the apartment.

Because yes, Alex had been the first to insist that they'd leave National City behind after the invasion, mainly to celebrate their engagement by themselves, and spend some time together in private. Maggie had been reluctant at first – the detective usually didn't spend all that many days off work. But of course, Alex's pout had changed her mind almost instantly.

So, now they were all set to leave for a romantic week-long getaway up north in Montana, in a cabin by the lake. Alex knew that Maggie wasn't really a hiking person, but the agent herself loved it, and she couldn't wait to get her to try it.

Amongst other things they'd be doing, of course.

"I hope you at  _least_  thought about bug spray."

"There's a can in my backpack." Maggie yelled back, before sighing. Their plane left in three hours, and they still had to go say goodbye to Kara. It wasn't so much that she was afraid to miss the flight – in all honesty she knew what kind of control freak Alex was, they  _wouldn't_  miss the plane unless somebody died, or the entire city blew up – but more her nerves getting the best of her.

Maggie was comfortable with Alex, of course she was. Her girlfriend –  _fiancée -_ was amazing, smart, talented, funny, and absolutely badass. They'd spend numerous nights together by themselves.

But that couldn't keep Maggie from doubting whether or not they were moving too fast. She hadn't regretted saying 'yes' to Alex's proposal, not in the slightest. But what if they fought? What if Alex saw something that she didn't like, and decided against her in the end?

"Hey. You okay?"

Maggie looked up to see Alex's worried face peeking out of the bedroom again. She must've been zoned out. She cleared her throat quickly, and smiled. "Yeah, sorry. I'm good. Ready to go."

"Good, because I just finished packing. I think we've got everything."

Maggie smiled, and leaned forward as Alex skipped out of the bedroom to kiss her on the lips. As the two of them pulled back, she saw the frown on Alex's face.

Maggie tilted her head and looked at her. "What is it?"

"Nothing." Alex laughed it off quickly, but Maggie wasn't buying it. Though, if Alex didn't want to talk about it, she wasn't going to push her.

"I texted Kara to come over, that'll save us some time in getting to the airport." Alex took a deep breath, as if she'd finally realized that things were going to be alright. Maggie grabbed her hands and smiled at her. "It's just me, Alex. Don't worry."

Alex nodded quickly. "Yeah. I know, I know."

Maggie continued to hold her hand, as a  _whoosh_  behind them announced the arrival of Kara Danvers, in her Supergirl uniform.

"I am  _so_  excited." Kara squealed, as she wrapped the both of them in a bone-crushing hug. When Alex heard Maggie's gasp for air – not used to Kara's hugs as she was – she laughed. "Kara, easy."

"Oh." Kara let go quickly, leaving Maggie to catch her breath. "Sorry. But  _still_! You have to keep me posted  _every day_ , and-…"

"Little Danvers…" Maggie smiled. "I'll make sure that Alex doesn't forget about you, but I think she'll have other things on her mind."

Kara's eyes widened comically, as she realized what Maggie was implying. Alex gave her girlfriend a nudge in the side. "Don't traumatize her."

"Like she doesn't know what we'll be doing."

"Well! Uh…" Kara stammered. "I guess… Have… _fun_? And I'll uh… I'll see you… Next week!"

"Hey." Alex looked at her sister. "If there's anything, call, okay? I don't know how much reception there will be, but I'll try to answer as quickly as possible."

She enveloped Kara into another hug, and rubbed her back, as Maggie watched the two of them with a content smile. Kara had truly become the little sister she'd never had. And she was all too eager to take care of her like Alex was.

Kara turned her head to the window, and winced. "I'm hearing a robbery… Are you two going to be alright? Do you want me to drop you off at the airport?"

Alex could practically see Maggie turning green next to her, as she quickly shook her head. "We're fine, Kar. We're going to take a cab."

The first – and hopefully for her last – time Maggie had been flown somewhere by Kara, it had ended in throwing up and a string of curses that even Alex deemed  _a bit too much_.

"Thank God." Maggie grunted as Kara flew away through the window. "I owe you one."

Alex laughed, as she wrapped her arm around Maggie. "Let's go, babe."

* * *

Maggie had narrowed Alex's anxiety down to three possibilities.

One – she was as nervous about screwing up as Maggie herself was.

Two – she was still a bit traumatized about the events of the invasion.

Or three – she was terrified of flying.

Come to think of it, it probably was a combination of all three of them.

But as the plane took off into the sky, and Maggie felt Alex tense next to her, she realized that the last option was probably her main concern at the moment.

Though it did make her wonder. Alex Danvers had flown in a spaceship, numerous helicopters, and had been flown around by Supergirl all the time. She wasn't afraid of heights.

Deciding against pushing once again, she just took Alex's hand in hers, and kissed her temple, holding her against her shoulder.

She felt Alex squeeze her hand tightly, and focused on not trying to wince in front of her, as that was probably the last thing she needed.

A few minutes later, when they were stable, and the seatbelt light went off, Alex took a deep breath and leaned into Maggie, whispering. "Supergirl. She uh… Her first rescue. Do you remember that?"

"Yeah." Maggie nodded. "I was a patrolling officer, I had to help with securing the perimeter of the plane."

"She uh…" Alex licked her lips. "…She saved that plane… Because I was on it."

"… Oh." Maggie took a second to comprehend the gravity behind those words. It had meant that she'd probably seen Alex before, there, on the site. It meant Kara had become Supergirl for Alex. It meant…

Of course Alex was scared of flying, if the last time she'd been in a commercial aircraft, the thing had nearly smashed to pieces if it hadn't been for her sister.

Maggie nodded, and kissed the back of Alex's hand. "I'm here, babe. Whatever you need."

Alex smiled weakly, and leaned down to rest her head on Maggie's chest, falling asleep to the stable sound of her fiancée's heartbeat.

* * *

Seeing the lake appear in front of them for the first time, surrounded by big green hills, put an immediate smile on Alex's face.

The drive up had been pretty uneventful. Alex had slept through most of the plane ride – something Maggie was grateful for, now that she knew the context of Alex's panic – and because of that, the agent had insisted on driving so that Maggie could close her eyes in return.

They had to stop at a house a few miles away first, where the owner lived, to get the key. The man renting out the cabins was a friend of Lena's, and she'd been happy to pull the strings for Alex.

So, a few minutes later, Alex parked the car in front of the fancy looking house on the other side of the lake, close to the main road, and turned around to see Maggie curled up, her back turned to her, and breathing evenly.

"Mags… Babe, we're here."

" _Mmhm_ …" Maggie flinched away from her touch, before slowly opening her eyes.

"We're at Laurent's house."

"I'm up, I'm up…" Maggie groaned, wincing against the sunlight hitting her eyes. Alex smiled in absolute adoration at how cute Maggie looked when she was sleepy. She'd witnessed it many times before, but it never failed to make her smile.

Alex opened her door, and got out of the car, waiting for Maggie to follow her up to the front door of the mansion. She rung the bell, and waited.

Seconds later, the door opened, and a 60-something, gray man was standing in the doorway with an enthusiastic smile on his face. "Ah, you must be Alex!"

"Yes, sir. You must be… Mister Delacroix."

"Please… It's  _Laurent_ , dear. Come in, come in! I made tea!"

Alex and Maggie shared an amused look, before following the man inside, and closing the door behind them.

Lena had told Alex about the man – Laurent Delacroix, a French-born novel writer with a few bestsellers to his name, who bought the mansion and cabin as a getaway in the United States. Too much money, and no family or friends to spend it on.

So the sight of him looking overjoyed at the prospect of drinking tea with them made Alex feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

"You have a beautiful home, Laurent." Maggie complimented politely as they made their way inside. He looked flattered, and motioned for them to sit down on the couch, bringing over three mugs, and a kettle of tea.

"Thank you, dear. The both of you look beautiful. I wanted to congratulate you on your engagement."

The pair smiled, as he continued his story while pouring out the cups of tea. "I have two characters in my latest book – they're very similar to the two of you. Ambitious. Powerful. Fearless."

"Do they end up married too?" Alex supplied, sipping from her cup of tea, but Laurent stared at her dramatically. "One of them dies. In the arms of the other. Because there is no love without sacrifice."

Maggie and Alex shared an uneasy look, before Laurent burst out laughing. "I'm kidding! Enough about me, darlings. I won't bore you with my endless tales and stories, this week is about you."

He got up, and walked over to a cupboard, fishing out a key. "This is the key to the cabin. Everything should be fine, I wrote everything down and put it on the table in the living room. There should be enough wood for the rest of the week, but if you run out, you can call me. There's a landline, the cell reception isn't fantastic."

"Great!" Alex smiled, as he handed her the key. "The same goes for you too, Laurent. If something's wrong, you can give us a call."

"Yes, miss Luthor mentioned something about you two being agents. Did you bring guns, by any chance?"

The pair shared another look. Maggie opened her mouth first. "We brought both of our handguns, but it's just a precaution, sir. And of course, we're both licensed to carry them."

Laurent nodded slowly. "There is some wildlife in the area that sometimes makes its way to the cabin. I wouldn't want you to shoot it, but just in case – there are two hunting rifles in the basement, in a gun safe. If you need the combination, give me a call. I shouldn't tell you, but you've probably shot more than me."

Alex and Maggie both nodded, taking the request seriously.

A few minutes later, when they finished their cups of tea, they found themselves back in the car, driving towards the lake cabin.

"He was nice." Maggie smiled.

"Lena's very fond of him. He seems a bit lonely though, we should have dinner with him sometime this week."

Maggie nodded. "Sad little old man."

"'Sad little old man' wrote a couple of pretty good books, from what I heard."

"Wait, he writes books?!" Maggie gasped, the puzzle pieces matching up in her mind. "Laurent Delacroix! He's  _the_  Laurent Delacroix?! From the  _Amélie Sanguine_  series?! I  _love_  those books!"

"Look who's being a nerd." Alex raised an eyebrow. Maggie shook her head. "Have you ever read them? They're amazing. It's like this chick that's a private investigator and goes all over the world to solve mysteries."

"So, basically Nancy Drew."

"Hey!" Maggie seemed truly offended. "Don't knock 'em 'till you've read 'em, Danvers!"

Alex laughed, and tapped along to the song playing on the radio on the wheel, feeling her earlier anxieties slipping away at the thought of being there, at such an amazing place, with such an amazing woman she was ready to spend the rest of her life with.

* * *

" _Oh_ …Wow…" Maggie was at a loss for words.

She'd anticipated a small, cozy, log cabin with a fireplace, some deer head trophies and a stuffy basement.

What they got was a highly luxurious, technological cabin with a flatscreen television, a jacuzzi, a modern fireplace and not a speck of dust in the entire area. There was a jetty next to the cabin, with a rowboat attached. They could barely make out the other side of the lake, as it was miles and miles away.

Alex wrapped an arm around Maggie's waist, and pulled her into her. "Satisfied?"

"Well, I don't know about you, but I'm never going to be able to look at my apartment the same way again."

The agent laughed, as she rested her forehead against Maggie's. "I'm so happy you're here. That  _we're_  here."

"I'm happy you walked onto my crime scene that day at the airport, Danvers."

Alex scowled. "I do recall it was  _my_  crime scene, Sawyer."

"Semantics." Maggie dismissed quickly, with a dimpled smirk on her face. "So… What do you say we…check this place out properly?" She moved forward, and started kissing the nape of Alex's neck. The agent sighed contently, and leaned into the touch of Maggie's lips.

"Mmmhm… I'd like that." Alex smirked, before she grabbed Maggie's wrist, spun her around and put both hands on her cheeks. "I love you. So much."

Maggie grinned. "I love you too, Danvers."

The next few hours were spent exploring, both each other, and the cabin itself. But after multiple orgasms, the two of them were completely spent, and lying in each other's arms in the divinity of the modern four-poster bed of the master bedroom.

After a deep breath coming from Maggie, resting on Alex's chest, the agent looked down. "You okay?"

"More than okay." Maggie smiled. "Just… thinking. About how happy I am."

Alex's heart glowed at hearing it, and she figured it was impossible to love Maggie even more, but she continued to amaze herself constantly.

"So… I guess the old French writer wouldn't have any vegan ice cream on stock, would he?"

"Doubt it." Alex stretched out, as Maggie lifted her head from her chest. "We should check what's in the cupboards, and maybe head to the store."

"Hmm…" Maggie looked at the clock on the wall. "I think it's too late to head to the store. Guess we'll have to do with whatever's here for tonight, and go tomorrow."

"I mean, we have enough to eat..." Alex smirked, as Maggie shoved her away playfully.

The both of them threw on their clothes again, and headed into the kitchen. There was a lot of canned food, definitely enough to last them for the week, but Alex still wanted to go find a store to get some more vegan ingredients for Maggie.

"So… What are we going to do with all that free time tonight?" Maggie looked at Alex with a flirty smile on her face. "Round two?"

"I almost passed out earlier, I think I need some more time to recover." Alex shook her head with a grin. "How about we go out for a hike? Explore the surroundings, the sun is going down, it'll be beautiful."

"Yeah, I'm down with that."

After a quick meal, they both strapped on their boots, and left the cabin. Both of them brought their guns –  _just in case_ , they had agreed – and started the hike up the hill. There wasn't really a trail to follow, so they just climbed and clambered around, helping each other, and laughing about it.

A quick water break had the both of them sitting down on a group of rocks on a flat part of the hill, next to the steep slope down.

"So, hiking, you like?" Alex asked, taking a big gulp of her water bottle. Maggie shrugged, swallowing a mouthful of water too. "I used to walk around Blue Springs a lot. But at least that's flat."

"Never joined the girl scouts, Sawyer?" Alex teased. Maggie shook her head. "I got kicked out before all that, and my aunt didn't exactly care about my extracurricular activities."

Alex looked down with a sad frown. "I'm sorry, Mags."

"Nah, it's fine." Maggie shrugged. "I'm badass now, that's all that matters."

It was meant as a joke, and it didn't miss its target, but it didn't make Alex any less sad at the thought of what Maggie had gone through. Though, if Maggie seemed over it, it was highly unnecessary for her to make a problem out of it.

Maggie looked at her. "Penny for your thoughts?"

"Just… Glad to be-…" Alex looked up with a smile, but her eyes widened at something behind Maggie's left ear, and for one second, her face flashed pure fear.

Maggie was about to turn around, when Alex made a weird noise that drew her attention. "Don't turn around. Focus on me. Trust me, just… stand behind me."

"Alex…" Maggie tried again, her hand reaching for her gun, but the agent grabbed her hand quickly. "No… Don't do that, just do as I say."

"Tell me what's going on." The detective tried to search her face for clues, but the fear had made place for the professional, stoic gaze Maggie was used to seeing in the field.

"There's a… _bear_  behind you." Alex tried to break it slowly, but Maggie ignored her and turned around, a hand still resting on the holster of her Glock.

Sure enough, about fifty yards away from them, was a big brown grizzly bear. The kind that looked ready to eat them the second they made a wrong move.

"Don't freak out." Alex whispered behind her.

Maggie craned her neck slightly just to speak in Alex's direction. "Don't you tell me not to freak out, there's a fucking _bear_  in front of us, Alex."

"I know." Alex eyed the bear cautiously, a hand placed on Maggie's arm.

If Maggie didn't know any better, she would have laughed at the ridiculous situation in front of them. "So what do we do? Play dead, run away? Bears can't run downhill, right? If we run down the slope…"

"Bears  _can_  run downhill, that's just a myth."

"Oh,  _great_. That's just great." Maggie groaned, carefully taking a step back. The bear was sniffing around, obviously tracking something.

Probably them.

"Okay, just… Walk over to the slope. If we lose eye contact he'll lose interest."

Maggie wasn't thrilled about the prospect of taking such a risk, but she trusted Alex with all her heart. And Alex was a bio major, right? I mean, not exactly biology, but she should at least know how to run away from a bear… Probably.

So she settled on leading the way, shuffling towards the steep slope, and looking down. They hadn't chosen this part of the side of the hill to climb up, as it was too steep to even consider climbing without equipment.

"That's a long way down." Maggie whispered. When Alex didn't respond, she turned around.

And her heart stopped.

Alex was holding a stick she'd picked up, and currently had her arms raised above her head.

"Danvers, what are you  _doing_?!" Maggie yelled in shock. The second it had left her mouth, she realized her mistake. The bear turned around, finally spotting the two of them.

Alex tried to make herself even bigger, shouting and yelling nonsense and raising the stick threateningly, as the bear started to take a few steps into their direction.

Maggie knew that if the bear started to sprint, he'd be on them in no time. "Alex, get back here!"

But when Alex ignored her once again to continue yelling and screaming, probably to scare it away, and the bear sped up towards them, Maggie realized the both of them needed to get out, and fast.

She grabbed Alex by the waist, pulling her backwards, trying to slide down the slope carefully. She figured a few cuts and bruises would be nothing compared to being that bear's late night snack.

But she winced as she made the second mistake, miscalculating the slope. Instead of sliding down, she felt herself falling, hitting numerous trees and rocks on her way down, and showing no signs of slowing down.

She saw a rock nearing in her peripheral vision, losing all track of space and time, and the next second, she felt it slam into the side of her head.

She blacked out.


	2. Chapter two

Alex groaned.

The plunge down the slope had happened so fast, she barely even understood what had happened. One second she was trying to scare off the bear, and the next… She was lying on a slightly less steep part of the slope, having been stopped by a small tree.

Then, the pain caught up to her. Because a sharp ache shooting through her right leg had her gritting her teeth and grunting loudly. She looked down, her face paling when she saw the bone sticking out of her lower leg, blood oozing out.

"Fuck… fuck…" She whispered through the pain, lowering her hands, but finding herself unable to put pressure on anything without making the pain a hundred times worse.

Another second of pain made her realize that she hadn't exactly fallen down by herself. She felt lightheaded at the implications of not hearing or seeing her anywhere around her.

"Maggie?!" She moaned out, her voice not managing anything other than a weak whisper. "Mags…"

She tried to drag herself away from the tree, as it was blocking a part of her vision down the slope. Her arms protested at the effort it took not to rustle her injured leg, but as the tree disappeared from her vision, a body a few feet down made her heart stop.

"Oh god… Maggie!" She cried out, now trying to move down on pure adrenalin, and ignoring the various pains shooting through her body. Because the thought of anything happening to her…

Before she could reach further down, she saw the detective begin to stir. Immediately, Alex became lightheaded with relief. "Mags? Can you hear me?!"

Maggie moaned pathetically, and turned her head slightly so she was facing Alex's direction. The agent could see the blood running down her temple. But as she opened her eyes, and their gazes locked, Maggie's mind caught up.

"Al… Oh… baby, your leg…" The detective got up. Alex had about twenty phrases ready to get Maggie to stop moving around so quickly, but she was in too much pain to voice any of them. Instead, she settled on a weak hand gesture. "I'm fine, don't worry."

Maggie didn't respond sarcastically, and Alex made a mental note about it. It was clear Maggie wasn't exactly in the right mind, but that didn't matter, as she was currently crawling closer to Alex. Her arms and legs seemed okay enough to move around.

When she reached her, Maggie cupped Alex's face in her hands and kissed her desperately. "I'm so sorry, I thought I… It was going to… and I…"

Alex took a hold of one of Maggie's hands, and shook her head. "It's okay… We just need to get help."

"There's no reception here, Alex." Maggie swallowed thickly, panic lining her voice. "I tried earlier, when you were scouting ahead. Not a single bar… We're… We're stuck and you're hurt and… God, it's all my fault, I'm…"

"Hey, no." Alex winced, but tried to cover it up. "We're not playing the blame game. This was an accident. That bear wasn't meant to be there."

Maggie laughed weakly at Alex's joke, but then grew serious again immediately. "Tell me what to do, Al… Tell me how I can help you."

Alex seemed to consider the situation for a second. She'd had received training to survive in any sort of climate, which had included being dropped in the wilderness and surviving for three days before being picked up at a rendezvous point. She knew what to do.

The only problem was, she couldn't move without pain shooting through her leg, let alone walk. And she was still much too concerned about that gash on the side of Maggie's head that had made her lost consciousness to forget about it.

They needed each other.

"Okay… uh…" Alex clenched her eyes shut, trying to think, trying to get a plan. Maggie was kneeled down next to her, looking her in the eyes. But apart from the head injury, she seemed okay. That thought comforted Alex, at least a little bit.

"We need to get help. We were walking up the hill at least two hours, but we slid down most of it, I think." Alex looked around, trying to orientate herself. "That means our cabin is maybe one hour away."

"Okay…" Maggie nodded slowly, but winced as her head moved around too much. She reached up to touch the side of her head, and grunted at the blood coating her fingers. "We can do that."

Maggie moved forward, and slipped an arm underneath Alex's knees. But when Alex winced, she pulled back immediately, a look of helplessness and concern on her face. "I can't move around with a broken leg, I'll slow you down."

"Alex, I'm not going to leave you here. It's getting dark, I… What if that bear comes back?!"

Alex leaned back, closing her eyes. "Mags, it's our only shot of getting help. You need to run back to the cabin."

"I'm never going to find you if I leave you behind…!" Maggie seemed decisive. "I'm not leaving."

"Mags, fuck, this isn't some noble thing you can do." Alex was getting annoyed at Maggie's behavior. "Just go and get help!"

"Can't we… I…" Maggie was breathing heavily and looking around, and Alex frowned as she watched her sluggish movements. Of course. Maggie wasn't in the right mindset, she probably had a concussion from slamming her head into a tree.

She reached forward to touch Maggie's cheek with a shaking hand. "Maggie, I need you to look at me. Babe, hey."

Maggie's eyes finally settled on her, but Alex saw the pain behind them.

"I'm sorry…" The detective whispered again. "I should have been more careful, you're hurt and I'm…"

"Babe." Alex tried again, her voice a concerned whisper. "I need you to stop talking."

Maggie trailed off immediately. Alex leaned forward to put a hand over one of Maggie's eyes, shielding it. She'd never been this desperate for a pen light.

But there wasn't enough light around them to properly do her check-up, so she looked at her again. "Maggie, what's my last name?"

"Sawyer." Maggie responded. For a second, Alex's heart dropped at the answer, fearing that the detective truly had brain damage. But Maggie flashed a weak grin after that. "Although we haven't exactly had that discussion yet."

Alex didn't reply to the cheeky comment, as she was too busy trying to assess the damage. "Do you feel dizzy or nauseous?"

"Al, I'm fine." Maggie insisted once again. "Stop it. I'm just going to go walk around the area to try and find reception. If something's wrong, yell out, okay? Give me your phone."

Alex nodded weakly, and handed it over as she watched Maggie get to her feet and start clambering back up the trail, one phone in either hand

Meanwhile, Alex considered their options once more. She highly doubted Kara could hear them from this distance, and J'onn's psychic radius definitely stopped as soon as they crossed the state.

Truly, the only option they had was getting back to the cabin. So Alex experimentally tried to get back to her feet using the nearby tree. Maybe, if she could lean on her left leg and Maggie could support her, she could at least get away from the slope before either of them slipped and fell another hundred feet down. It was miracle both of them had survived the first fall without being gravely injured.

She managed to crawl to her feet carefully, without putting pressure on her injured leg. It wasn't ideal, and she felt her left leg ache from the earlier beating it had taken, and now from supporting her entire weight.

A few cracks overhead made Alex believe that Maggie was back. But the noises didn't sound like Maggie's quick and light footsteps at all.

Alex's eyes widened, as she drew her gun. Her barely being able to move didn't mean she wasn't going to go down without a fight against whatever animal was currently stalking her.

As she aimed around without a clue where the animal could be popping out from, she heard a shout a little higher. She couldn't see Maggie anywhere, but she knew it had been her.

It had been far away, so she didn't know whether it was a scream of terror or victory. But she didn't want to take any risks with whatever was close to her, so she settled on hoping for the latter, and staying alert.

The instant something shot out of the bushes behind her, she turned around, the pain in her leg making her yell out, as she fired three bullets into the sound's direction.

After that, the forest went deadly quiet.


	3. Chapter Three

Alex was breathing heavily, but her heart leapt at the sight of a gray wolf, stumbling and finally collapsing to the ground, blood pouring out of two bullet holes. If she'd been slower, if she hadn't had the instinct to turn around…

" _God_ …" She whispered, feeling bile rise up in her throat at the close call. "Oh God…"

She'd faced threats fifty times worse than just a lonely wolf in the middle of the woods of Montana, but somehow the adrenalin made it hard to breathe. She slumped back down to the ground, dropping her gun and clutching her leg.

She needed Maggie. Right now.

But a shout of her name did nothing. And a quick look around made it clear that she wasn't anywhere around.

Instantly, Alex's adrenalin sparked up again.  _What if there were more wolves, what if that scream had been…_

"MAGGIE?!" She yelled again.

After a few seconds of absolute silence, and Alex felt tears prick in her eyes, she finally heard the relieving shout of her name.

"Alex, I'm here!"

It took Maggie another ten seconds to finally appear in Alex's line of vision, stumbling down the slope. "Hey… Are you okay?"

Alex laughed weakly, finally feeling the tears slipping down her cheeks. "I killed a wolf."

Maggie frowned, before kneeling down next to Alex. "There's no reception, anywhere. I got half a bar, but I couldn't make a call."

Alex sighed, leaning her head back. "Okay, okay…We're here, we're together."

Maggie smiled weakly, leaning her forehead against Alex's, wincing only slightly. "I love you."

"Guess we're not going to have that woodsy wedding after all, huh." Alex whispered breathlessly. Maggie laughed, shaking her head. "Inside. In a basement without windows, nothing green comes in."

Alex took a second to revel in the fact that Maggie was  _here_. That they were together. Before the agent inside of her appeared again. "Mags, we need to get out. If we stay here, we're sitting ducks for whatever animals are coming. And it's getting dark."

Maggie nodded. "If we can get back to the edge of the lake, we can walk around it and see the cabin."

"Help me up." Alex gritted her teeth against the pain in her leg, as Maggie carefully pulled her up, wincing sympathetically at the sound of her weak moans. "We need to keep moving, and keep checking for reception."

"Got it." Maggie took a shaky breath, wrapping her right arm around Alex and helping her manoeuver down the slope. They moved slowly, minding their injuries, and overall didn't make much progress, but at least it felt like they were doing something.

After a few minutes, however, the pain in her leg became unbearable. "Mags, I need to stop… Stop, please."

Maggie halted immediately, lowering her down onto the ground and kneeling down next to her, looking her in the eyes. "Talk to me, please."

"It's fine." Alex shook her head. "Just pain. It's broken, and the dirt is probably infecting it."

Maggie gently moved her fingers down to Alex's pant leg, looking at her face for a nod of permission. When she got it, she carefully pried the fabric away from the wound, earning a hiss from the other woman. But Alex didn't miss the look of fear that passed over her face.

"That bad, huh?" Alex smiled weakly. Maggie looked up at her again, and swallowed thickly, shaking her head. "It's going to be alright."

Alex dropped her head back. "Oh, well, if you put it like  _that_  it can only be horrible."

Maggie sighed. "It looks… Bad, Alex. We need to get you to a hospital."

"I figured." Another weak attempt at a joke, but Maggie didn't join in. A look of grave concern was plastered on her face, illuminated by the dried blood caked to her face.

"Are you good to go?" Maggie asked, her hand finding Alex's and clutching it. Alex took a shaky breath, and nodded.

The detective hoisted her up again, and they continued down the slope in silence, only broken by weak moans of pain, shaky breaths and grunts. The both of them were in bad shape.

Finally, Alex was just about to ask for another break, the exhaustion seeping through her bones, and the sweat dripping down her forehead, when Maggie sighed in relief. Following her gaze, the agent saw the lake appearing in front of them.

The pair moved to the bank of the lake, where Maggie lowered Alex down again to rest. "Stay down, okay? Don't move, I'm going to get water."

Alex hummed, as her eyes followed Maggie's figure, leaning down at the edge of the water, and cupping her hands together to get some water, and walking back to Alex. The agent half expected Maggie to tell her to drink it, but frowned when Maggie dumped the water onto her leg. A sharp pain radiated through the limb once again, as Alex grasped at the dirt underneath her.

"T-the cabin…" Alex whispered to distract herself, looking around the lake and finding the building soon enough. But her stomach dropped when she saw that it was at least another two miles away from them. She could never walk two miles with a broken leg.

"Maggie…" She tried to get her fiancée's attention, but the woman was at the lake's edge again. She grunted, and tried again. "Babe…"

Maggie didn't turn around, but she didn't appear to be doing anything or moving either. Alex frowned, as she pushed herself in her direction. "Mags? Babe, are you okay?"

The only thing she heard was the wind roaring through the forest behind them. Panic started seeping through her composure, as she was almost next to Maggie.

But before she could reach out for her, Maggie seemed to snap out of whatever state she was in, turning around and almost tripping over Alex, obviously not expecting her to be this close. "Alex,  _God_ , I told you not to move!"

A concerned frown settled over Alex's face. "Are you okay?!"

Maggie scoffed, as if the thought was ridiculous. "I'm more worried about you."

Alex was aware that Maggie didn't answer the question at all. She had to keep an eye on her, but she also knew that Maggie was currently the one in the better position to get help.

"Maggie, you need to listen to me." Alex grabbed her by the arm, and looked at her. "You know that I'm not going to make it to the cabin. It's too far."

Maggie bit her lip, shaking her head. "I… I  _can't_ … We've been through this."

Alex grit her teeth. " _Babe_ …"

"No, Alex. I can pick you up and carry you all the way, I don't fucking care if it takes me ten hours, but I'm not going alone. If I leave you and something happens… I…"

Before Alex could calm her down, their eyes widened at the sound of a phone ringing. Maggie scrambled to pull both phones out of her pocket, finally finding that Alex's was making the noise.

"Hello?!" She answered, without looking at the caller ID.

The voice at the other end of the line made her head spin with relief. "Laurent! Laurent, it's Maggie, we need help… We were hiking, and there was a bear, and we fell, and Alex is hurt! We can't move, we're on the bank of the lake…"

Maggie reached for Alex's hand, and pressed three relieved kisses to her knuckles, holding it in hers. "Please… We'll stay here… Yes, thank you so much, I-…" Maggie's eyes widened, as she lowered the phone again. "Fuck! The line died… B-But he said he was coming for us! He was going to call for help and come get us!"

Alex closed her eyes, and nodded. "Good… That's good."

Maggie laughed breathily, tears appearing in her eyes again, as she moved to lie down next to Alex, wrapping her arms around her while trying not to rustle her leg. "We're going to get you to a hospital, and they're going to fix your leg, and we're  _never_  leaving the city ever again."

"You don't want to go back to the cabin and have amazing, mind-blowing sex like earlier?" Alex teased weakly, moving a hand through Maggie's hair. The detective laughed weakly. "Well, maybe we can stay for some more of that. But we're never going hiking again."

"For two people that fight aliens for a living, I can't believe we got our asses kicked by a slope of dirt."

"Don't forget the bear." Maggie supplied, looking up at the darkening sky.

"I don't think I'll ever forget the bear."

After a while of silence, relaxing in each other's hold and waiting for rescue, they passed out.

* * *

She had a nightmare.

A nightmare that somebody had trapped them in the woods, that a dark figure was towering over them and laughing evilly. She couldn't move, she couldn't…

Alex shot up, breathing heavily. It took her all of five seconds for her to realize why she was lying on her back on the bank of the lake. Her leg was throbbing painfully, but she ignored it.

Because it took her another three seconds to realize that Maggie wasn't lying next to her anymore.

And the drag marks on the ground that lead back into the woods made her heart stop.


	4. Chapter Four

"No. No, no… _no_ …" Alex whispered to herself, fighting to stop the bile from rising in her throat. "Maggie?!"

She hoped –  _prayed_  that Maggie was going to call out to her. That she'd been scouting for  _God_ knows what, that she was fine…

But there was no reply.

The marks that lead into the woods. Those were her clues. Alex pulled herself into an upright position, and crawled closer to the marks to inspect them.

Had it been the bear? A wolf? Had some animal found their scent, attacked Maggie and pulled her away from her?

But, Alex rationalized. She was a light sleeper. In her line of work, she  _had_  to be. So the sound of a predator nearing them, the sound of Maggie  _screaming_ … that would have woken her up.

None of it made sense.

And it made even less sense the second she looked at the drag marks from up close. The heels of Maggie's boots were dug in the dirt, producing two nearly identical markings.

But it was too dark to see what exactly had dragged her.

Alex panted, all of a sudden feeling lightheaded.

Her mind instantly raced with possibilities. Maybe Maggie really had been in a bad shape, and Laurent had found them and taken her with him, because he could only carry one person?

If that was the case, then at least Maggie was safe. It would  _explain_  the drag marks. But it didn't ease Alex's mind in the slightest.

The only way to know for sure, was to follow the marks, and find Maggie wherever they lead. Alex wasn't going anywhere without her, that much was sure.

Ignoring the pain shooting through her leg – she didn't want to think about how it looked – she started limping in the direction of the woods, eyeing the marks as best as she could with the limited light of the moon shining above her head.

Maybe all of it really was a dream, and she'd wake up in the cabin, with Maggie by her side any second now.

She willed herself not to think about it.

The trail brought her deep into the woods, keeping the slope upwards on her left side. Her gun was still in the holster on her hip, as she needed both hands to manoeuver through the trees, but she was alert and ready to draw in case another predatory animal made itself known.

A thought struck her, making her stop in her tracks.

_What if it hadn't been Laurent…_

Sure, it was a secluded place in the middle of nowhere, but that didn't mean it was private property… Anyone could have found them. Anyone, or anything.

"Don't…" She whispered to herself, while still eyeing the drag marks. "Stop it, Danvers."

She was getting in her own head. She wasn't scared of the dark, or being alone in the woods during the night, for that matter. She'd survived 24 hours by herself during the wilderness dropping before she found and regrouped with her other agents.

Yet none of that had trained her to respond to this situation. The only selfish thing she could do is go back to the lake and wait for somebody to come get her, as Maggie had said on the phone.

But she couldn't be selfish. Not when she wasn't sure that Maggie was okay.

She'd been walking for what felt like hours. She didn't have her phone, Maggie had tucked both their phones back into her pocket.

And the drag marks stopped.

Alex frowned, and leaned forward to inspect the ground more closely. Sure enough, the dragging stopped abruptly in front of her feet. It was too dark to see anything else, but this was where her trail stopped.

"Shit…" She cursed, looking around. But the trees were so dense and dark, there was no way she could possibly guess which way they went.

All coherent thoughts flew out the window the second she heard a noise coming from her left. She dropped down to the ground immediately, drawing her gun and biting her lip to keep herself from crying out at the pain shooting through her leg.

She closed her eyes to focus on identifying the sound. Then she heard it again. A rattling. It sounded human. It sounded…

Alex crawled forward, an uneasy feeling settling in her stomach. Inching closer to the source of the sound. It couldn't be…

She went around a big tree standing in her path, and froze at the sight in front of her.

It was Maggie. Lying down on her back on the ground, blood leaking from a new cut above her eyebrow, and out of her mouth. Her eyes were closed, and the rattling sound Alex had heard earlier was the sound of her strained breaths.

"Oh  _god_ … Maggie…" Alex cried, speeding forward as fast as she could and kneeling next to her. "Hey… Babe, I'm here… It's okay…"

Maggie responded by moaning weakly, and opening her eyes. She shut them immediately, a wince distorting her face.

"Mags… W-what… What happened…" Alex stammered. She was pretty sure that Maggie wouldn't remember what happened if she hadn't been conscious for any of it, but she had to do  _something._  She had no medical equipment, nothing to help her, to stop her bleeding…

"A- _Al_ …" Maggie whimpered. "Al…"

"Shhh, it's okay. It's okay."

Another weak grunt. " _Trap_ …"

Alex frowned. "Trap?"

"Al… trap…" The detective mumbled. Alex was just about to ask her what she was talking about, when another noise behind her made her spin around and draw her gun once again.

If whatever was behind her wanted a piece of her, it could try to come get it. But she'd die before she'd let anything happen to Maggie again.

A figure appeared to her left, and she spun around, aiming her handgun at it. "Let me see your hands!"

The figure didn't respond, and inched closer. Alex was seeing red, she was furious at whoever was in front of her, for hurting Maggie. "Hands behind your head, now!"

A sound Alex recognized immediately from her training as the click of a bolt rifle's handle being pulled back.  _Shit_.

"Perfect." The figure whispered. And sure enough, it didn't come as a surprise to Alex.

Laurent, standing between two dark trees, a hunting rifle trained at Alex's chest, and grinning. "Absolutely perfect."

Alex shot a quick look back at Maggie, whose eyes were wide. A shaking hand on the holster of her own gun, but apparently coming to the same conclusion as Alex.

He was in charge now.


	5. Chapter Five

"Okay, okay…" Alex raised her hands, pointing her gun loosely into the air and away from the man. "Just, calm down, alright? We can talk."

Laurent's face spread into a wide grin. "Yes. You  _need_  to talk. It'll be perfect."

It was now the third time he'd called the scene unfolding 'perfect', and Alex was pretty sure that the man was deranged. Sweat pearled at his forehead, while he kept the rifle trained on Alex's torso, but the grin hadn't disappeared in the slightest.

"You." He whispered, looking at the agent. "Tend to her."

Alex was panting, and her heart was beating out of her chest, so she was pretty sure she'd misunderstood him. But when she didn't move, he pointed the rifle impatiently in Maggie's direction. "Now!"

"Okay!" Alex limped arduously, until she was at her fiancée's side. She had a brief moment of eye contact with Maggie, where the detective shook her head slowly. The confusion was evident on her face.

"I- I don't have supplies." Alex swallowed thickly, and turned her head to face Laurent. "I can't do anything."

"Shhh." Laurent shushed through thin lips. "You're ruining it!"

Yes. Completely deranged.

Alex's breath was shaky as she gently cupped Maggie's face in her hands, trying to see where the blood was coming from. She gently wiped at the cut on her eyebrow with her thumb, and winced sympathetically as she saw Maggie's eyes close involuntarily.

"It's okay." Maggie raised a weak hand to bring up to Alex's cheek. "It's  _fine_ , Alex."

Alex felt helpless. Between her barely being able to move – at this point she was pretty sure they'd have to amputate her leg once they got to a hospital – and Maggie's head injuries, she knew there was no way they'd get out of the situation unscathed. She had to do  _something_.

So she settled on poking the bear.

Getting up, and moving to stand between Laurent and Maggie, in a desperate attempt to at least shield her from him. "I'm not playing your game, Laurent."

"Ah." He smiled. "Finally."

Alex was about to ask him what the  _fuck_  he was talking about, when he lowered the rifle, and pointed backwards. "About 10 meters back, there's a quad. Take her with you, follow the road back to the cabin. There are medical supplies, light the fire, take care of her."

Alex shook her head. "No way." The thought of a fire, and being back inside the cabin was definitely heaven right now, but it was too easy. He wouldn't put a gun to their heads and then let them walk away, there  _had_  to be a catch.

He grinned again. "It's not an option. It's an order. Obey me, or I'll have to end your story right here." He raised the gun again, pointing it at Maggie's form on the ground.

" _Alex_ …" Maggie's shaky voice made the agent look up. "Okay, fine. Fine. You win."

Whether there was another  _bear_ , a pipe bomb or an alien waiting for them in that cabin, if doing what he said meant that they would get to live another 10 minutes, she'd take the risk.

She kneeled back at Maggie's side, as the detective moved to stand up. The both of them moved slowly and carefully, as they supported each other in walking to the quad. Laurent followed them, the barrel of the gun poking Alex in the back. "There's just enough gas to make it back to the cabin, so don't think you can drive off. Nobody will help you, you can only rely on each other."

Alex felt the grip around her waist tighten, as they finally made it to a grey, dusty quad standing in a clearing. Alex took the lead, gripping the handlebars in her hands after helping Maggie sit behind her.

"You okay?" She tried to look back as she felt Maggie's head rest on her back.

"'M tired…" Maggie replied, with a heavy sigh. Alex looked up at Laurent's figure, standing proudly between the trees next to the ATV. "Good. Good, perfect."

She was really starting to hate that.

Without sparing him another glance, she took off, trying to drive as carefully as possible to not rustle either of their worn down bodies too much, but also trying to get away from the psycho man as fast as possible.

True to his word, the cabin appeared within less than five minutes, and Alex sped up to get there faster. She parked the quad in the driveway, her head already racing with possibilities on how to escape the madness from there.

Sure enough, the quad had run out of gas. Much to Alex's horror, she also noticed that all four of the tires to their car were slashed. They were trapped.

She turned around, seeing that Maggie hadn't moved from the quad, and gently wrapped her arms around her. "Hey… We're almost inside, babe. Hold on."

"Mmmhm…" The weak moan coming from her lover broke something inside Alex. Had that asshole drugged her? Had he knocked her unconscious? Did she have brain damage, an aneurysm?

She picked Maggie up in her arms, trying to put as much pressure on her good leg as possible, and slowly made her way inside the cabin, closing the door behind them.

"Al… P-Put me down… Your leg…" Maggie whispered.

"Shhh, it's okay." Alex lowered her onto the couch, before moving back to the front door, switching the lights in the living room on, and straining herself to put a heavy coat rack from near the door in front of it, effectively blocking anyone from entering. It wasn't going to help much, as there were more doors and windows, but at least it felt a  _little_  safer.

"Come here." Maggie's croaky voice made her turn around and limp back to the couch. She ran a hand through Maggie's hair, but the detective seemed a bit more alert than before. "Lie down… Please. Rest your leg."

Alex shook her head. "T-there are still… Doors, we need to barricade them. A-and we need to call for help, get help here, because he's going to come  _back_ , Maggie, and he's going to kill us, we can't…  _I_ can't…"

"Alex, breathe." Maggie put a hand on her shoulder, moving to sit upright despite Alex's look of protest, and pushing the agent down. "I'll go see if there's a first aid kit somewhere like he said, okay? We need to look at your leg with decent light."

Alex didn't really look forward to the prospect of seeing whatever damage was done to her leg, especially not in  _decent light_ , but lying down made her realize just how exhausted she was from walking through miles of woods.

Maggie got up, seemingly steadying herself for a few seconds, before taking off, rummaging around shelves, bookcases and drawers.

"Keep talking." Alex heard her say as she disappeared from her field of view into the kitchen. Alex closed her eyes, trying to make sense of everything. It had happened so fast, all of it…

"He's a psychopath." Alex said. "Class A narcissist. His perfect world, all the rest has to move for his ideals."

"I don't think so." Maggie shouted back from the kitchen. Alex frowned at hearing that, turning her head to look in her direction. "Are you kidding? He pointed a  _gun_  at us! Everything was 'perfect'!"

"Yeah, I don't doubt that he's a psychopath." Maggie chuckled dryly as she appeared back into the living room, holding a big red box. She set it down on the coffee table, and moved a chair from the table to take a seat next to the couch. "… But I don't think he's a narcissist."

"Then what would you call it?"

"A writer." Maggie raised her eyebrows. "Don't you remember what he said? That we were a couple that reminded him of what he wrote?"

Alex's eyes widened. Of course. That made perfect sense.

"So… Whatever he has in mind for his characters… He's making  _us_  do?"

"All of his novels are super dark stuff." Maggie winced at the memory. "People being ripped away from their friends, put into dark bunkers and cells by themselves, until they die of starvation and loneliness… It's all super fucked u-…" Maggie cut herself off.

Alex frowned, propping herself up on her elbows. "Mags? Mags, what's wrong? Are you okay?!"

Instead of replying, Maggie shot up from her chair, and moved to the other side of the room. For a second, Alex thought there actually was someone in the house beside them, but she followed Maggie's gaze to the bookshelf in the corner, as the woman searched the spines of the books, finally pulling one out.

"Here, this is the book he was talking about, his new one. I haven't read it yet."

Alex wasn't exactly following her plan, and it must've been written all over her face, because Maggie breathed shakily, opening the book to page one.

"If this is where he got his inspiration, he's making us do shit that he's put those characters through, right? So… If we read it, we might… We might get a better idea of what we're up against."

"Maggie…" Alex swallowed thickly. "H-he said that… He said that one of them dies."

Maggie smiled grimly, though it turned into a grimace quickly.

"Yeah. He did."


	6. Chapter Six

“Okay, the story is about the investigator, Amélie, and her all-American girlfriend Faye. They’re super close…” Maggie flipped through the pages with a grunt. “Faye’s kind of the sidekick to the story, until it all goes downhill.”

“I could see you as my sidekick.” Alex smiled weakly, teasing the detective, who huffed indignantly. “As if you would be the private investigator.”

“What makes you think I couldn’t pull it off? I have all the skill requirements to be a P.I.”

“Uh, hello?” Maggie raised an eyebrow. “Detective here, real life investigator.”

“Well, I could do your job.”

Maggie opened her mouth, a frown plastered on her face, to snap at Alex, when she saw that the agent was grinning madly. She huffed again, and clenched her jaw shut.

“You should have seen your face.” Alex laughed. “Sorry, baby… Couldn’t resist.”

“I’m _totally_ the P.I. in our relationship.”

“If that makes me your all-American girlfriend, then I’m game.” Alex smiled. She’d taken a big dose of painkillers, and her leg was more numb than anything at this point. Maybe the meds were making her a little loopy, but she honestly didn’t care; as long as she had Maggie by her side.

“Hmm.” Maggie’s frown was now directed at the pages, clearing her throat to read out loud. “’ _Of course she is my muse. What else could she be? She keeps me afloat, when all I feel is the weight of the world, dragging me under, dragging me down. She’s the light in my darkness, where pain ends, and life begins.’”_

“Heavy stuff.”

“I like it.” Maggie looked up, realizing how the words sounded. “I mean, it’s inspiring and poetic… but, given the situation…”

“I know what you meant.” Alex reassured her. The conversation fell silent after that, as Alex experimentally moved her leg around. The only thing Maggie could do about it was splint and bandage it, she couldn’t exactly set her broken leg. She’d lost some blood, but as much of a psycho as Laurent was – she doubted he had a stock of blood lying around.

In return, she’d put butterfly stitches on the wound on Maggie’s eyebrow and temple. She had a pretty good feeling Maggie had a concussion but was trying to play it off. She knew that Maggie felt like she had to be the legs between the two of them, so she put up a brave face.

Alex didn’t want to pry, she knew that she’d been exerting her body more than she should have with her injuries, so she wasn’t exactly in a position to get all high and mighty about open communication.

Maggie flipped through more pages, until her gaze finally settled on something she deemed interesting. “’ _I wake up. She’s not there. The Beast must have found her again. A shock ripples through my body, leaving me paralyzed, and unable to think. The drag marks in the muddy ground leave a path back to the hill... I must find her, before it’s too late.’”_

Alex closed her eyes, remembering how scared she’d felt when she’d woken up without Maggie by her side. The detective lowered the book slightly, looking at her. “I… woke up. He was standing over me, I was about to scream, and then it all went black. I think he drugged me, but I’m not sure… When I woke up, you were there.”

Alex wanted to say that she was sorry, but she realized herself how stupid that sounded. It was a waste of energy and effort; they were both in it together, and apologies were empty words.

“’ _The Beast has found her, standing over her like a lion over its prey. It towers, and she’s curled up, smaller than she’s ever been. I can’t stand to look at her, at how vulnerable this makes her. She’s a goddess, pulled down from Olympus, and thrust upon the gates of Hell, her eyes water with unspoken fear as it comes closer, its breath in her neck. I can only watch. As the Beast seems ready to strike, I lunge. Empty handed, with only the sheer will of keeping the flame of my life burning. With my mind on her, and her alone.’”_

“I stood up to him. That’s why he thought it was perfect, I followed his story.” Alex nodded slowly, starting to make sense of it.

“So, if all we have to do to stay on his good side is follow the story…” Maggie flipped through the pages, looking for the next sequence. “Here… _‘With a herculean effort, I lock the door behind us again, as Faye rekindles the fire. I can see in her eyes that the encounter has changed her. Something inside her, a switch flipped, a circle broken. I know I have to talk to her’_ … bla, bla…” Maggie continued browsing the pages, her mouth moving. But Alex was still caught up on the previous paragraph. Of course, she had to talk to Maggie. She _did_ look like something changed, like something was wrong.

“ _The Beast is watching, like he always is. Faye hands me a bandage, and smiles weakly as I start wrapping it around my bruised shoulder. It’ll leave marks, that’s for sure. The Beast is not satisfied until every waking moment is spent with him on my mind. But there is more to the story. There is always more. Why has it cornered us in a safe haven of light, when all it stands for is darkness? Why has it allowed us this moment of peace, when all it seeks is chaos?’ We have to go back to the basement, and get another look at my research. Maybe we overlooked something.’”_

“Right. Basement. That’s where he wants us next.” Alex shuddered at the thought of _the Beast_ watching them. He probably had cameras installed all over the place. God, even in the bedroom… He’d probably seen all of their earlier intimacy…

Just the thought of it made her absolutely sick. Maggie closed the book, and put it on the coffee table, near Alex. “Okay, stay put, I’m going to go look in the basement.”

“I’m coming with you.” Alex frowned, but Maggie put a hand on her shoulder, easing her down. “You need to read the book, and rest your leg. Stay put, and call out if you need anything. I’ll check if the landline still works too, he smashed both of our phones when he dragged me back.”

“Don’t go far.” Alex whispered, grabbing Maggie’s hand as she moved away. The detective shook her head, and leaned forward so that their foreheads were touching. “Relax, okay? Just, search for more clues on what’s going to happen to us, maybe write them down or mark them. If we know what’s happening, and he plays it by the book, we can get one step ahead of him and catch him off guard.”

She knew that Maggie’s explanation made sense. But that did nothing to ease her mind, as she watched her lover rummage through the drawers, finally finding a flashlight, and disappearing into an adjacent room.

With a heavy sigh, and dread settling in her stomach, she reached for the book.


	7. Chapter Seven

The landline was dead.

Of course it was.

Maggie sighed as she dejectedly shoved the phone back onto the hook. She was hyper alert now, since she hadn't forgotten about the passage she'd read earlier.

_The Beast is watching._

Anything could be a camera, that much was for sure. A rich guy like Delacroix could afford a few button cams installed in doorknobs, paintings… _fuck,_ maybe even the showerhead.

The mental image of Laurent grinning as he watched the two of them have sex or take a shower, made her see red. He was going to _pay_ for what he did to them.

The stairs leading down to the basement were outside, so she slipped out of the cabin slowly, raising her gun and flashlight and looking around. _Damn. She really should have read the book_ _before going in._

For all she knew, there could be a trap waiting for her. Or waiting for Alex, alone and upstairs…

She opened the hatch that lead to the basement, and with one last glance around, lowered herself into the dark hole, making sure to shut the hatch behind her.

Her gun was drawn, but she knew how much her hands were shaking. The drugs in her system were still pumping through her veins. She didn't know what he'd given her, and that thought scared her. For all she knew, she could drop dead any second.

The basement was completely dark, and smelled old and damp. She took a few steps, pointing the flashlight around to get a sense of the room.

It was a large, open space, but stocked with shelves, bookcases and desks. Numerous things were covered in white sheets, giving the room an eerie, quiet yet scary vibe.

"Right…" She whispered, moving forward. "Research…"

She browsed through the nearest shelves and drawers quickly, but none of it was interesting. Keeping one eye on her surroundings at all times, she moved around trying to look for anything remotely relevant to whatever they were going through. But she didn't even know _what_ she was looking for, let alone where to look for it.

Then, it all clicked, as she saw something in the corner of her eyes, against the wall.

His gun safe.

" _There are two hunting rifles in the basement, in a gun safe. If you need the combination, give me a call. I shouldn't tell you, but you've probably shot more than me."_

That was what Laurent had told them, back at his house… That _had_ to be the clue.

Maggie lowered her gun, and jogged towards the safe, kneeling down in front of it. The combination… _shit._ Instead of a numerical pad, she found a 4-letter word lock.

An endless stream of possibilities raced through her head. She took a deep breath ,as the detective inside her got to work.

Laurent asked them to call him for the combination, but he'd cut all communications, so he must have thought they could figure it out on their own.

She started out with the most obvious one. _Love_.

Moving nimble fingers to get all the letters in the right order, she listened intensely, but there was no click. Wrong.

"Damn…" She whispered to herself, wiping her forehead gently with the back of her hand, mindful of the stitches in her eyebrow. "Okay…"

 _Faye_. That had to be it, right? If Alex really was his Amélie, then Maggie was his Faye.

She clicked the four wheels around again, until they spelled the character's name. She closed her eyes, but sighed impatiently as there once again – was no sound coming from the safe.

She wracked her brain, trying to remember any four-letter word relevant to Laurent's story. Maybe _Book_? _Hate_? _Bear_? Or shit, maybe it was French? Alex's French way better than hers, but…

Too many possibilities, so the only thing she could do was try them all, and hope that one of them would crack the code. And if not – she'd just go upstairs and ask Alex. Maybe the answer was in the _stupid_ book all along, and she was wasting time for nothing.

 _Book_. Alright.

She flipped the wheels around again, hoping for the best.

* * *

' _So far, our investigations into Sophie have turned up empty. I know Faye's approach is different than mine – she's much more eager to get her hands dirty, while I prefer the subtle touch – but the feeling of being separated from her is one I never want to feel again. We may disagree on a lot when we're out, but whenever we're alone, it's like everything in the universe aligns itself just to make it feel right.'_

Alex scribbled a quick note down onto the sheet of paper she'd found in a drawer. _Hands dirty? Separated?_

She flipped a page, skipped a few paragraphs to get to another relevant one, and sighed.

' _The Beast is onto us. It feels like he's always one move ahead. Faye is in the basement, and I feel his eyes on me. Lurking from the corner, grinning a toothless smile that makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up…'_

Alex didn't look up. She knew that Laurent was probably standing at one of the windows, staring inside the cabin. If it was a fucking scare he was after, he wouldn't get the satisfaction. Of course she was scared – she was _terrified_ – but a cruel part of her just felt bad for him, it seemed like he'd planned this for far too long. She wasn't in the mood.

She wanted to look up, badly. To look him in the eyes, smirk at him, and yell that she wasn't scared. That they were going to get out of there, that they were going to put a bullet between his eyes, or let him rot away in prison.

Instead, the moved back to the book.

' _He has disappeared. One moment he was smiling at me, the next he was gone, like smoke. He is outside, probably looking around for a way in. I don't dare to move a muscle, out of fear that he is standing right behind me. Until it hits me – Faye. She's in the basement, she is outside. He is after her.'_

Alex's eyes widened, but her eyes flitted over to the next words. _'I run downstairs, and I can see it standing next to her. She doesn't notice that she's in danger, she doesn't see the monster, close enough to kill her with a glance. She's too busy fiddling with the lock in the corner to feel one of its claws running down her spine, ready to puncture, to maim, to dig in until she cannot move, until it has finally claimed her…'_

"Shit!" Alex jumped up, using the fireplace poker she'd previously salvaged as a makeshift crutch, and hopping to the back door.

Before it was slammed in her face.

She stumbled backwards, knocking a vase off an end table on her way down, and cursing like a sailor as the contact made her leg throb painfully once again. She crawled towards the door, but to her horror, it was locked. She banged her fists on the wood, yelling. "Maggie?! Maggie, it's me!"

When no response came from the detective, her heart started beating out of her chest. Maggie was in _danger_. He was coming after her. She needed to do _something_ …

More thumps sounded around the house, as Alex realized what was happening.

 _He was locking her in, and locking Maggie out_.

Separating them. For good, this time.

"No, no… No!" Alex punched the door once again, but it didn't budge. "Fuck…"

She limped back towards the living room, unable to think.

She picked the book up again, and continued where she left off. Hopefully that could give her some idea as to what Laurent had in mind for the both of them.

The last paragraph of the chapter made her eyes widen.

' _Now, I'm truly alone. He's pulled me away from the only good thing in my life. The Beast has won. There is no other way. She was the light in my darkness, and I was her shadow. And we could not exist without each other, that much is sure. I can hear her screaming. It's raw and animalistic, and it fills me with dread. I'm running out of time. I have to finish it, before The Beast kills her. I have to find the missing woman. I have to find Sophie. Only then will it find peace.'_

Alex looked up and lowered the book, when all of a sudden, it all clicked.

Because her photographic memory wasn't failing her. She remembered it. From as soon as she'd stepped inside the cabin for the first time.

She got up and limped into the master bedroom. She'd flipped it over earlier because it had freaked her out during their sex, but she couldn't forget the face.

A beautiful woman, looking about 50, but fierce and defiant, in a black and white portrait put in a picture frame on the nightstand.

Alex grabbed the frame, and flipped it over, taking the picture out. And sure enough, her gut feeling had been right.

Three lines of text written in pen on the back of the photo.

 

_To the love of my life._

_A toi pour toujours,_

_Laurent._

 

His wife.

He wanted Alex to find his wife.


	8. Chapter Eight

A jolt went through Alex's body when she realized the gravity of the situation.

He wasn't just playing games, he was… on a mission. To find his missing wife. And Alex and Maggie needed to help him find her.

But if Laurent really wanted them to help – being a government agent and a police detective – surely he could have asked them over dinner, or tea? Why would he go through the lengths of staging an entirely too dramatic real-life version of his own book?

For now, Alex just concluded that the man was absolutely insane, probably with grief over the loss of his love. She couldn't even begin to imagine what it would feel like to lose Maggie, not knowing if she was dead or alive.

Though their current situation started to feel eerily similar.

She took the photo out of the frame, walked back into the living room, and put it down on the table, next to where she'd haphazardly flung the book.

She dropped down onto the nearest chair, absent-mindedly picked at the bandage on her leg while trying to think. Sophie – was that his wife's real name? Blonde, 50's…

Alex had no idea where to start, because she didn't know _anything_ about the situation. Where, how, when. The type of questions that need to be answered to build an investigation. Surely Laurent had to realize that there was nothing she could do like this?

Would the book really have more information on it? Would it even make sense?

Too many questions, Alex realized. But lack of a better plan made her reach for the book for what felt like the hundredth time, this time starting at the beginning.

' _My name is Amélie. I'm a private investigator…'_

Before she could even read the next line, there was a loud banging on the back door that had shut in her face. Alex reached for her gun instinctively, aiming it high as she struggled to get up from the chair.

She moved slowly towards the kitchen, where the back door was located. She didn't want to fall for another one of Laurent's traps. If she opened the door and got a bullet in her head, or whatever other ' _tragic fate_ ' he'd made up for them…

Her stomach jumped when she finally heard the hollow screaming on the other side of the door, sounding familiar. _Too familiar_ …

"Oh god…" Alex whispered to herself as she reached for the door handle, pushing it down, and finding to her surprise that the door flung back, and she was tackled to the ground by a panicked, screaming figure.

She landed on her back, gasping for air and realizing in less than a second that her gun had fallen out of her hands in the commotion. She was defenseless…

But it didn't matter, as the next second, she recognized the figure thrashing on top of her, her eyes widening. " _Maggie_ …"

"It's not you, it's n- _not you_ …" Maggie whimpered, her hands reaching for Alex's cheeks. "Please tell me it's you… Allie…"

"Mags, wha-…" Alex grew concerned immediately at her panicked state. "Of course it's me, are you okay? Look at me… Babe, look at me…" Maggie shook her head over and over again, before finally resting her head on Alex's chest, sobbing loudly.

Alex felt her body cramp at the awkward angle she was lying in, but she didn't dare move, as she wrapped her arms around Maggie and held her, rubbing her back gently as she cried.

A few minutes later, when she felt Maggie's sobs die down, she carefully took Maggie's face in her hands, tilting it up so she could look in her eyes. "Babe, what happened?"

Maggie dabbed her cheeks with her sleeve, and got up, allowing Alex to finally shift in a more comfortable position, leaning against the door that had fallen shut again.

"T-there was a safe, in the basement. I tried to open it, but I didn't know the code. It was four letters, a-and I tried _everything_ , but it wouldn't work. So I wanted to come back to you, but… I heard a noise. From…behind the wall."

Alex frowned, but continued to rub circles on her lover's back as she continued.

"It sounded like something ticking, I thought that maybe it was a bomb… So I looked for a weak spot in the wall, and I tore a hole… _a-and_ …" A fresh set of tears spilled down Maggie's cheeks. An uneasy feeling settled in Alex's gut, as a wide range of scenarios popped into her head as to how Maggie's story would turn out.

"I-it was _you_."

_That_ , Alex hadn't seen coming. Her head shot up, a confused look spreading across her face. "What?"

"It's you, you're downstairs… There's _so much blood_ , Alex… There's already _rats_ , they're _eating you_ , and-…!"

Alex interrupted her quickly, resting her forehead against hers. "Woah, woah, shhh, calm down, Mags. I'm right here. It's not me."

"Yes, it is! He has you in a crawlspace, you're dead, you're _dead_ …"

Alex's concern grew even more. Maggie seemed almost delirious. Laurent must have given her a hallucinogenic drug that made her completely lose it.

"Okay, you know what? We're going down there." Alex figured the best way to show Maggie that it wasn't real, was to stand right next to her and show her. "Together."

"Please… don't leave me." The detective whispered, clinging into Alex as if she were the only thing keeping her afloat.

"Never, Maggie."

Alex grabbed her gun from the kitchen tiles, holstered it, and got up.

"How's your leg?" Maggie asked, looking at her with wide eyes, bloodshot from the hysterical crying.

Alex laughed weakly. "I'll live."

Maggie didn't seem convinced.

* * *

"T-there." Maggie whispered, pointing to the other side of the basement with the flashlight.

Alex nodded, taking point and walking up to the hole, her gun raised. She noticed how much the ray of the flashlight was shaking through Maggie's trembling hands. "Okay, Mags. Look at me, right? I'm here. I'm breathing. There is nothing there."

Maggie handed her the flashlight, her own sidearm clutched in her right hand. Alex shone towards the wall, and gazed through the hole, already opening her mouth to continue talking Maggie down from her drug-fueled hallucination.

Bile rose up in her throat instantly, as the smell and sight hit her simultaneously.

_Death_.

_Maggie had been right._

A woman, with short, auburn hair. Like Alex's. _Too much like Alex's._

Currently getting eaten by rodents. Her eyes wide, and terrified.

And absolutely more than dead.


	9. Chapter Nine

She couldn’t help it. She ran as far as she could in the stuffy room, and threw up in the corner. Within seconds, she felt Maggie’s hands on her back, but she found herself unable to reply as the visual of the dead woman was burnt in her mind.

She could handle dead bodies, she’d dealt with them before. But the _smell_ …

The body must have been down there for days, if not weeks.

And the fact that it looked so much like _her_.

“Al…” Maggie’s shaky voice filled her head, and the agent raised a quick hand to indicate that she was done vomiting.

“So...” Alex said, as soon as she was sure her voice wouldn’t crack. “… He wants us to look for his wife. His wife is missing, that’s what his book is about.”

“What happened to her?”

Alex laughed weakly, shaking her head. “I don’t know. None of it makes sense. The book can’t _predict_ what we’re going to do… Why would he think that we would do exactly as he wrote? I mean, if he really thinks that we’re his characters…”

Maggie seemed to think about that for a second, before her eyes went wide in realization. “Of course! _Fuck_ , why didn’t I think about that?!”

“About what?” Alex tried, but Maggie was already running back towards the other side of the room, picking up the flashlight that Alex had dropped during her sprint. She ran back to the safe. “The combination…”

Her fingers quickly rotated the gears. A-L-E-X. Because _how could it not_.

A click, and the safe unlocked and swung open.

“That is _fucked up_.” She shook her head, as she shone the light, trying to get an idea of what was inside. She saw guns, probably the rifles he mentioned. A bunch of papers and folders, and a shoebox. She pulled everything out, and placed it on top.

Alex joined her, taking the guns while Maggie carried the rest, as they silently communicated. _Let’s get out of here. Fast._

Once they were back inside the cabin, they made sure to barricade all the doors first. Not that it would help; if Laurent really wanted them to play his game, he wouldn’t chop their head off before they got anywhere.

Though, neither of them was really eager to bet on that risk.

Maggie spread out the paperwork on the dinner table, and put the shoebox on a chair next to it, as Alex put the guns within arm’s reach on the mantle of the fireplace.

“Let’s get cracking.” Maggie said sarcastically, as she heaved a deep sigh and reached for the first sheet of paper.

Most of the loose documents were relatively irrelevant. Gun licenses, bills… Maggie put them aside quickly, and moved on to the folders, Alex following suit.

“I got something.” Alex said, after a long silence. Maggie lowered the papers in her hands and moved over, tilting her head so she could read along.

“These are all medical bills for a… Julia Aubert. It’s cancer treatment.”

Maggie frowned. “It looks expensive, but I mean – Delacroix can afford it, look at this cabin.”

“Judging by the birth date, I’d say she’s the wife.” Alex flipped through the bills. “Looks like she’d been in the hospital for quite some time between 2012 and 2016.”

“Well, if she had cancer, then why is he insisting on us investigating it? If she died, she’s dead, right?”

“Hmm…” Alex frowned, grabbing another paper that got her attention. “Well, this explains it. He filed for a lawsuit in January against the hospital that treated her…  Because they were sending him bills even though she wasn’t getting the treatment anymore.”

“Okay, so she’s been gone for at least two years?” Maggie rubbed her temples, trying to make sense of it, trying to get the story in her head, like she’s done a thousand times. But her brain felt slow and weak.

The other papers of that particular file weren’t interesting, so they went back to work. But the shoebox in the corner was pulling Maggie’s attention. She lowered the files she’d been reading – medication dosages and order forms – and grabbed it, putting it in front of her.

She opened the lid, and peered inside.

The first thing she pulled out was a necklace. A gold chain, looking more like a memento than anything valuable. But the backside caught her attention. The letter ‘A’ carved into the wood made her throw a dubious look in the direction of her girlfriend.

Laurent wouldn’t be… _that_ obsessed, would he?

She put it aside, and focused back on the box.

A small doll, complete with pink dress and looking _super creepy_ in the current context, which she put aside rather quickly, a human tooth – which she did _not_ want to think about – and lastly, a DVD.

She twisted it around in her fingers, but there were no words written on it. “I think we need to look at this.”

“There’s a DVD player underneath the TV.” Alex pointed. Maggie moved quickly, putting the disk in the slot, and connecting the screen to the player.

Immediately, a video started playing.

The first thing both of them saw was the face of the blonde woman – _Julia_ , Laurent’s wife. Looking older than the photo Alex had, and much sicker too. Her face was pale, she had a bandana over her head, no doubt to cover up her baldness, and her face had lost its defiant glow. The eyes – staring right into the camera – were haunting. She was smiling, but there was an incredible, raw sadness in them.

“ _On va où?!”_ Julia laughed weakly. She was standing in the middle of a forest – no doubt the same one the cabin was at. Behind the camera, they heard Laurent laugh.

“ _C’est pas loin!_ ”

Maggie frowned at the French, but Alex cleared her throat. “He’s saying that wherever he’s taking her, it’s not far.”

The couple continued to talk, as Julia moved through the woods carefully, slowed down by her weakened state. Alex translated every now and then, if something mildly important was said.

Finally, the two of them arrived at Laurent’s destination: an open clearing in the woods with a picnic basket and blanket laid out. Julia laughed, and commented on how beautiful it all was.

Laurent replied, and Alex was halfway through translating what he was explaining, when a loud rumbling noise stopped both the talking on the video, and in the cabin.

Alex and Maggie watched with wide eyes as the camera stayed on Julia, who was asking what the hell that noise was, and looking around. Until finally, her eyes settled on something off screen, and she _screamed_ in terror. They heard Laurent curse in both French and English.

“ _Cours!”_

Maggie didn’t have to speak French to realize that Laurent was _begging_ his wife to run for her life from whatever the two of them had seen. The camera started shaking horribly, and Laurent’s panting breathing was the last thing they heard, before the video cut, leaving the two of them in complete silence.

“This must have been when she disappeared.” Alex said with a shaky breath.

A sharp stab of a headache made Maggie wince. She was tired, in pain, and fed up of being in fear for her life. She forcefully pressed the off-button on the television, before grunting. “I’m not doing this.”

“What?”

“We won’t know what he knows unless he fucking _sits down_ and talks to us like a normal man who’s lost his wife! If he goes to the police they’ll help him find _whatever_ he saw. He fucking _murdered_ someone in his basement, Alex. We need to get the hell out of here and call for back-up.”

“How? All the lines are dead, I can’t run and you have a concussion.” Alex sighed. “I know how you feel but-…”

“But you _insist_ on playing detective when you know that we’re not going to help this psycho! He probably just killed her himself and wants to play with us before he _eats_ us alive!”

“Maggie, stop it. It’s not funny, we need to-…”

Once again, Maggie had no patience for her explanation. “No, _fuck that_ , Alex. I’m done. If he wants our help, he can come ask for it.” She turned around, hoping that whatever camera or microphone he had installed to eavesdrop was hearing her loud and clear. “…But if that _coward_ thinks that I’m going to help him if he points a gun at me, he’s mistaking.”

Alex closed her eyes involuntarily. Now she’d done it. She understood where Maggie was coming from, and she couldn’t say that she didn’t feel the same way, but if it meant keeping the both of them safe, they _had_ to play along. They were trapped in his cage.

“Mags… We can’t do this right now. You’re tired, you’re hurt. Let’s get some rest, alright? We can continue investigating in the morning.”

_Everything will be far less creepy in the morning._

Maggie opened her mouth to protest, but sighed. “We need to get out of here, Alex.”

“I know, babe. Come on, I’ll tuck you in.”

“You’re not coming?”

Alex smiled, leaning forward to kiss her on the lips. “I’ll just finish up what we have. And I need to change my bandage.”

“I can-…” Maggie started, but Alex left no room for argument as she lead her up to the master bedroom. Maggie – knowing well enough that he was watching but finding herself unable to care – pulled off her shoes, shirt and pants, and nestled herself in the warm bed. “Don’t take too long.”

“I promise.” Alex kissed Maggie’s uninjured temple, and wove her fingers through her hair, as she watched the detective fall asleep in a matter of seconds. She had to have been truly exhausted.

She gave another feather-light kiss to Maggie’s forehead, before slipping out of the room, switching the light off, and heading back to the living room.

As soon as she walked in and reached for the light switch, her hand froze.

A dark, figure was standing in the center of the room.

It craned its head to look her right in the eyes.

She should have seen it coming, but it didn’t help her heart beating madly in her chest.

_How did he get in?_

Before she could move, his face spread into a dark smile.

“I assume you’ve had my message?”

 

 

 

 


	10. Chapter Ten

"I did." Alex glared, as she flipped the lights on and circled around the man. The rifles on the table were just out of her reach, and she was sure he would beat her if she dove for them. Hell, she didn't even know if they were loaded. She had to play it cool.

"So, you'll… _do it_?"

Alex laughed sarcastically. "You drugged her. You _hurt_ her. And you're a murderer. I'm not helping you."

"I had to get her. You wouldn't understand." Laurent took a seat at the table. He seemed unarmed, from what Alex could see, but of course – that didn't mean anything. She stepped forward, in his direction, as a sense of anger and protectiveness overtook her.

She leaned forward on the table, until she was almost touching his face. "I'm. Not. Helping. You."

"Listen to me." Laurent hissed, looking her in the eyes. And to her surprise, she saw a pleading in him. A weakness she hadn't seen before.

Though, she didn't know exactly how good of an actor he was.

"Read the book." He said. "It'll tell you everything."

"I came here to celebrate my engagement to the most beautiful woman in the galaxy, Laurent." Alex growled. "A getaway of all the craziness we've had to go through these past weeks. I swear to _god_ , if you as much as look at her in a way that I don't like again, I'll put a bullet between your eyes, _gladly_."

Instead of appearing at least a _little_ intimidated, she was shocked to see Laurent smile brightly. "Yes… Exactly."

"Exactly _what_?!" Alex yelled, losing her patience, before realizing that Maggie was sleeping, and she didn't want to wake her. She bit the inside of her cheek, trying to calm herself as much as possible.

"You don't have a choice." Laurent shook his head. "Youneed to follow the book-…"

" _Enough_ already." Alex interrupted him. "If you really wanted our help you wouldn't have scared us to death and almost killed us. You're fucking _crazy_."

Laurent's face twitched, and for a second, Alex accepted that she was going to die in the next five seconds. But then – instead of pulling a gun or a knife – he leaned forward, to look her straight in the eyes, not breaking eye-contact for a second, to whisper.

"You have until morning. When the sun rises, you will be dead. She will see it. All of it. And you will die in her arms." He shifted even closer. "…Unless you stop it."

"Stop _what_? Your ' _beast_ '?" She huffed back, finding herself less scared and more defiant than she'd felt the entire night. Every single thing except for the bear had been his doing. If she moved forward and snapped his neck right now, there would be no more danger.

Laurent smirked – a gesture that involuntarily made her hair stand on end. "He's coming for us next. He's watching. You need to find him before he finds us. The night is dark, but as long as there's no light, there is still hope."

An ironic twist to the words, Alex thought.

"I won't come back until morning, if you promise me you'll follow the book."

Alex laughed, trying not to show how her stomach felt tied up in knots. "Even if we followed your book. You wrote it. You know what's going to happen to us. You know where your wife is. You're just playing a game, that I'm not interested in."

Laurent reached into his pocket, and Alex tensed, ready to dive to the ground at the first sight of a weapon, but instead he pulled out an iPod with headphones, putting it on the table, between the two of them. He got up, and sighed.

"I'm sorry. For the things I did. But I had to get you to cooperate. Just… Listen. You'll understand."

He walked to the barricade, easing the coatrack off the front door, and turning around one last time to look at her. "I switched off the cameras. I won't be coming back."

Before Alex could respond, he walked out and shut the door behind him again, leaving her alone. She buried her head in her hands. What the _hell_ just happened?!

Laurent was gone. Their tormentor was gone. _But why would he leave like that?_

Nothing made sense. Alex's mind was pure static and chaos. The book, Laurent, the DVD…

She thought about crawling in bed with Maggie. Holding her, kissing her, pretending that none of it had happened. Maybe getting some kilometers towards the nearest house to get help, in the morning.

 _By morning, Alex would be dead_.

Sure. His 'no love without sacrifice' speech hadn't been lost on her. But at least she'd get to hold on to Maggie for one more night.

But she had to humor him first. Because truthfully, he'd - only _slightly_ \- piqued her interest.

She reached for the iPod, and put the headphones in. The only album on there was an unknown artist, with about thirty tracks that all ranged between ten seconds and ten minutes. Only the last track was about two hours long.

Alex sighed, and pressed play on the first track, leaning back.

She expected music, maybe Laurent explaining his motives.

But the female voice filling her ears made her eyes widen.

'… _Today is February 12_ _th_ _, 2017. It's 9.21 pm… There was an accident. We're hurt. We need help, but our car is wrecked, the landline isn't working, and we lost our phones.'_

Alex's stomach dropped. Had Laurent done this before, to other innocent people?!

Then – she realized.

The body in the crawlspace.

This had to be the woman.

Suddenly, _'when the sun rises, you will be dead'_ didn't seem so dramatic anymore.

She had to comply.

_She had to find his wife._


	11. Chapter Eleven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys. Thanks so much for all the lovely comments, they really motivate me to write as much as possible!

' _There's something watching us.'_ The voice, belonging to the woman, continued in Alex's ears.

A grating sound, as if somebody was dragging something heavy in the background. The microphone shifted. ' _What are you doing?'_

' _We need to block the doors. If it finds us…'_ Another female voice, sounding further away. _'…We need to do something, Alice. We need to call the police.'_

The first woman – Alice – replied. _'We can't, the line is dead… Finley, you're hurt. Sit down before you make it worse._ '

It reminded Alex so much of what they'd gone through not even one hour ago.

' _Do you think it's coming back?_ ' Finley asked, uncertainty clear in her voice.

Alice took a while to reply, shifting around. She was probably moving something. _'Baby, calm down. Everything is going to be fine. Can you tell me what happened out there?'_

' _I don't want to talk about it.'_

"Alex?"

The agent jumped at the sound of her name being called behind her. She yanked the headphones out of her ears and spun around, drawing her gun.

She sighed in relief when she saw the frowning figure of Maggie standing in the doorway.

" _Jesus_ …" Alex raised a hand to her chest.

Maggie moved closer, folding her arms. She seemed pale and shaky. "Why didn't you come to bed? What are you doing?"

"I'm-…" Alex bit her tongue, unsure how to break the news to her girlfriend. Instead, she glanced up at Maggie's disheveled state. "Are you okay?"

"I couldn't sleep. My head hurts." Maggie sighed. "What's going on, Alex? I heard voices, were you talking on the phone? Did you get through to someone?!"

"No." Alex said immediately, shaking her head. "I… Laurent was here."

She braced herself for Maggie's response, as the detective's eyes widened dramatically. "A-are you okay?! Did he hurt you?"

"It's fine. He left, Mags. He's not coming back."

Maggie took a deep breath, and dropped down onto the a chair next to Alex, holding her head in her hands. "So it's over…How did you do it? Did you scare him off?"

Alex instinctively nodded, and grabbed Maggie's hand. "Don't worry about it. Go back to bed, Mags. Try to get some rest."

Maggie leaned her head onto Alex's shoulder. "At least it'll be a damn good story to tell once we get back."

Alex smiled quickly. "Yeah. It will."

The detective gave her a long, loving kiss. "Don't take too long, okay? Please?"

"I love you, Maggie."

She smiled. "I love you too, Al."

After that, Maggie got up and walked back to the bedroom. Alex sighed in relief once again. The less Maggie knew about _whatever_ she was going to do tonight, the better. At least if the worst happened, she wouldn't be around. If she could protect Maggie from that, she would, without hesitating.

She grabbed the iPod. She had to figure out the entire story, to know how it ended. She pressed play once again.

' _Babe, that thing wasn't… It wasn't human.'_ Finley's shaking voice.

' _I know.'_ Alice took a deep breath _. 'It took Julia. We need to find her.'_

So the couple had known about the disappearance too.

' _You want to go back out there?!'_ Finley huffed. _'No way. Your shoulder, Al.'_

Alex winced at the familiar nickname. Even the way Finley _said_ it reminded her of Maggie's concerned gaze.

' _It's fine, I wrapped it. It doesn't even hurt.'_

' _Liar_.'

Another few seconds of silence between the pair, as Alex heard noises that sounded like chairs being moved. After that, Finley's voice sounded much clearer, as if she was right next to the microphone. _'He said he filmed her disappearance.'_

' _It'll probably be in the basement, that's where he keeps all of his stuff, in a safe.'_

' _I'll go get it.'_ Finley sounded decisive.

' _No. You're not going out there alone.'_ Alice grunted. _'It's too dangerous. That Beast could take you.'_

Alex realized that she'd heard the conversation before. Of course. Because it had pretty much been the same conversation she'd had with Maggie before she'd taken off to the basement.

Were the two women also following the book? Was Laurent the 'Beast' watching them?

Alex pinched the bridge of her nose, and skipped a few tracks, trying to get a sense of how Alice and Finley spent their horror night in the cabin, before one – or both – of them met their tragic fate.

* * *

Alex hadn't noticed that she took the book.

Thank _god_.

The last thing she wanted was for her girlfriend to be mad at her for being too curious. Obviously Alex was shaken by confronting Laurent, she didn't need Maggie poking around when Alex probably wanted to leave the entire night behind her. But something about the whole case rubbed Maggie the wrong way, and that was a feeling she didn't like. The detective in her _had_ to investigate.

Of course, Maggie was a fan of the _Amélie_ series Laurent had written. His stories were dark, mysterious and relatable to her. Amélie didn't take no for an answer, and she recognized much of herself in the young, defiant woman.

But she hadn't recognized this book. Upon closer investigation, she noticed that it was a trial print. So it wasn't out yet... That just raised more question marks.

She closed her eyes, trying to remember everything in the previous books. Maybe she'd missed something big. It was the main character, going to different places to solve mysteries and crimes. She was French. She was _gorgeous_ , she was…

Maggie hurried to move back to the first chapter of the book, flipping through the pages.

'… _When she moved a hand through my short chopped, auburn locks, I felt at home. Like I could take on the world.'_

Oh _god_. Short, auburn hair. She _knew_ something sounded familiar.

Suddenly, it all made sense. She'd read the books at home, finding it funny how much Amélie had reminded her of Alex.

… _The body in the basement had reminded her of Alex too._

Was it Amélie in the basement?

_Was she real?!_


	12. Chapter Twelve

She had to go back to the basement. Maybe the body had something on it, a clue, evidence. Whatever could help her make sense of this.

If Laurent based his character off a real person, that meant that all the events in the book happened in real life, including where the woman died to save her girlfriend.

Maggie didn't want to spend the rest of the night reading a book to figure out what happened, she needed to take matters into her own hands. This was her field of expertise, this was work.

As much as she needed the vacation they'd planned on having… This was more important.

She crawled out of the bed, stumbling for a few steps as her pounding headache caught up with her, and sneaked to the door. The kitchen with the back door was in sight, but she had to get past an open space. If Alex saw her sneak out, she'd want an explanation.

She couldn't take that risk.

Drawing her gun, she tiptoed past, glancing in the direction of the living room.

She did a double take.

Alex was leaning backwards sitting at the table, her bad leg resting on one of the chairs. She was staring at the ceiling, listening to what looked like an iPod.

How could she be listening to music at a time like this?

A twinge of anger and indignation rose up in her. All she'd really wanted was for Alex to come to bed with her, to hold her and to kiss everything better. She'd forgiven her the first time, but… She didn't get this. At all.

Though, at the moment, her detective instincts took over, as she shook her head with a barely audible huff, and made her way over to the back door, opening it, and sneaking outside.

If Laurent wanted to come back for round three, she'd put a bullet through his skull. But for now, she settled on staying alert and focusing on her surroundings.

The lake was eerily quiet and foggy. Maggie got distracted by the picturesque quality of the moonlight shining onto the water, lowering her gun to take it in. How beautiful it could all have been, if it hadn't been ruined by… _whatever_ was happening.

A missing woman, a mysterious body, and a psychopathic writer. She couldn't have made it up if she tried. It sounded like it came straight from a horror movie.

Then, she heard it. A noise behind her. She spun around, instinctively raising the gun, but there was nothing. Not even a rabbit or bird.

Maggie took a deep breath to try and compose herself. She felt her heart pound painfully in her chest, as she tried not to get into her head. " _Easy, Sawyer_."

The basement. The gun safe. Right. Maybe if she-

Another noise, this time from her right. She turned to its direction, but again saw nothing but trees and grass. _Shit_. Now she was getting paranoid.

She brushed off the thoughts, figuring she was probably just imagining things. She lowered her gun to move back to the entrance of the basement, this time without a flashlight. She pulled open the hatch, wincing as the metal screeched, and peered down. It all seemed pretty much exactly how they left it.

When she looked back up to ease herself into the hatch, her heart stopped.

A figure was standing at the edge of the woods, staring at her. Too far away to distinguish features, but tall and buff. It was staring at her, not moving, but watching her intensely.

Oddly enough, she wasn't any more terrified than she'd been two seconds ago. Because she faced aliens every day, fought them, and usually won. Whatever this _thing's_ problem was, it was about to get to know her.

She raised her gun again, walking towards the figure. She didn't dare talk, knowing that her shaky voice would betray her nerves and fear, but she was ready to confront it, head first.

The figure watched her come closer. Maggie never broke eye-contact. She _had_ to protect Alex, to keep her from dying. If they really had to follow the story, it meant that Alex would die for her. She wasn't about to let that happen.

When she was about twenty feet away from _The Beast_ – she assumed – she stopped abruptly. Her eyes widened.

_No…_

The figure stalked towards her.

After that, it all went black.

* * *

' _She was dying, Finley. Laurent took her out of the hospital and brought her here to die.'_

' _So, what?'_ Finley scoffed. _'You think he killed her? You think we're next?'_

' _I'm convinced.'_ Alice sounded sincere.

' _If he wanted to kill us, he would have done it already. He would have let that thing eat us alive. But he helped us.'_

Another parallel, Alex noticed. But she was getting frustrated. Most of the conversation between the two of them was figuring out what to do, and being concerned for one another. Tangible information was rare. She'd only written down four bullet points of information on the missing Julia Aubert. It seems like Alice and Finley were less invested in finding her and more concerned about getting mauled by that Beast.

Truth be told, if they did both end up dead – it hadn't been for nothing.

' _At least we're back in the cabin. It's lighter here.'_

' _But why did it let us come back here?'_ Alice asked. _'Why did it give back our peace?'_

Alex frowned at that. It sounded familiar.

She reached for the book, but found to her shock that it was no longer next to her on the table. She looked around the room, but it was nowhere to be found.

Where did it go?!

She closed her eyes, thinking.

The only reasonable explanation was that Maggie had taken it with her. _Shit_. She really didn't want to wake the detective.

But she had to.

She got up from the table, and walked over to the bedroom, opening the door slowly. The room was dark, but she noticed the book lying on the nightstand immediately.

Sighing in relief, she tiptoed through the room, reaching for the book.

And she leaned forward to give Maggie a gentle kiss on the cheek, when she noticed that the detective was no longer in bed.

All the air left her lungs.

She raced back to the door and flipped the light on, and saw now that the bed was empty. The door to the bathroom was open, so she wasn't there either.

Maggie was gone.

Alex opened the book, flipping back to the page in question, her photographic memory serving her well.

' _Why has it cornered us in a safe haven of light, when all it stands for is darkness? Why has it allowed us this moment of peace, when all it seeks is chaos?'_

It was nearly identical to what Alice and Finley had said.

She flipped to the details of the printing. It was a trial print, but that made sense.

But the date – _April 9_ _th_ _, 2017._ Two months after the two women had been stuck here.

_The book was based upon the voice recordings._

So the events of the book were based on what had happened four months ago, in this very same cabin.

Alex ran as fast as her leg would allow it, searching every room of the house and yelling out her fiancées name. But Maggie never replied.

Fear and worry controlled her, as she pulled her gun and ran outside. "MAGGIE?!"

Once again, she was met with silence.

Only this time, she was all too aware of a figure standing a short distance from her, watching her.

An unmoving body next to its feet.


	13. Chapter Thirteen

Alex heaved a painful breath as she raised her gun. "What do you want?!"

She pointed the firearm in the figure's direction, trying not to look at Maggie's unconscious form. She didn't want _it_ to see her shake, to see her scared.

When the figure didn't reply, she tried another angle. "If you need help, I can help you."

Pain shot up through her leg, making it hard to think. But she had to move closer, to get the thing away from Maggie.

The closer she got, the more she started to recognize its features.

It wasn't an alien. It was _human_. But only barely.

Naked, its skin completely covered with something looking like acid burns. Grotesquely maimed, almost unrecognizable.

_Almost_.

Because the few remaining strands of blonde hair, and the confused, wide eyes reminded Alex _a lot_ of a face she'd seen earlier.

_Julia_.

A thousand thoughts raced through the agent's mind. How should she play this? Did Julia attack Maggie? What had happened to her?!

She settled on lowering the gun slightly. "Julia, I know it's you."

The figure perked up slightly, and Alex's stomach dropped at the realization that she'd been right. Such a beautiful woman, ruined by whatever had taken her that day.

Julia stumbled forward, and pointed a shaking, burnt hand in her direction. Uneasy, Alex instinctively stepped back, not sure if Julia wanted to lash at her. Another flash of pain, and Alex's right leg finally buckled, sending her toppling to the ground with a loud cry.

The _woman_ stopped her movements immediately when she saw Alex's agony.

Instead, she crouched down, and put her index finger in the dirt next to Alex. Long strokes of the digit formed symbols in the soil. The agent clutched her leg, and tilted her head to read them. They were numbers.

_83_

She was about to open her mouth to ask Julia for more than that, when the woman ran back into the tree line. Alex frowned. "No, wait! Julia, come back! We need-…"

_Help_. She didn't finish the sentence, and sighed in frustration.

She had found Julia. Or rather – Julia had found them. And had gotten to Maggie first, probably.

Alex clenched her eyes shut. She was pretty sure her leg was officially beyond repair. But she had other things on her mind that made her push past the pain.

"Maggie…" She whispered to the detective lying a few feet away from her. Too far to reach with her hands. Her left leg was the closest limb, so she stretched it out in Maggie's direction, and gently pushed her elbow with her toes. "Mags… _please_ wake up."

Alex held her breath in anticipation, and finally released it in relief when she heard a quiet groan coming from the detective's still form. She started to stir, and finally rolled over from her side to her back. " _Ugh_ …"

"Babe, are you okay?!" Alex asked shakily, both her hands still nursing her leg. When she'd been running around she'd tried to ignore the pain as much as possible, but now it was finally catching up to her. So intense that she almost felt herself passing out. But she had to stay strong, for Maggie.

" _Al_?" Maggie asked in a small voice. Alex laughed weakly as she shook her head, trying not to show how scared she was for her. "You're okay, you're… You just got knocked out."

" _Julia…_ " The detective whispered, her memories finally catching up to her. "That Beast… It's her."

"She gave me something." Alex pointed downward, to the _83_ in the dirt. "I don't know what it means."

Maggie got to her feet slowly, experimentally testing whether she could stay upright. Alex watched her, concern written all over her face, but knew that just like earlier when they'd encountered the bear – Maggie had to move, if she couldn't.

"Maybe it's a birthyear?" The detective finally spoke. "1983… That could be how old Amélie was."

"The body in the basement…" Alex moaned. Maggie nodded quickly. "It's her."

"No, it's… _ah_ …" Alex hissed, slamming her eyes shut once again. A string of curses escaped her mouth as she tried to bite through the pain. "…it's a couple. They were here in February, in the cabin. The book was based on them, they have voice recordings."

Maggie took a second to absorb that information, feeling her head spin. "W-we need to get back inside, Al. You need help."

She moved towards her fiancée, picking her up in her arms and carrying her back inside. Alex knew that Maggie wasn't doing great: she was pale, shaking, and looked ready to pass out again any second, but she also knew that Maggie was stubborn and moronic when it came to acting brave in front of her. She didn't want to rehash the same 'I care more about you'-fight that they'd been having on and off, but she also didn't want Maggie to drop dead because she wasn't listening to her own body.

Once they were back inside the cabin, and Maggie placed Alex down onto the couch, the detective locked the back door and opened the first aid kit again, redressing the wound and giving Alex a big dose of painkillers in silence.

Alex watched her work, biting down on the couch when her leg hurt too bad, but trying not to make any noise that would disturb the silence that had fallen between the two of them.

When Maggie was done patching up the leg as best as she could, she dropped back down onto the chair behind her.

"You should let me take a look at your head." Alex said quietly.

Maggie shook her head quickly. "I'm fine, Alex. Don't worry about me."

"Bullshit. You're not fine." Alex looked at her intensely. "You passed out again."

"It was just shock…" Maggie tried to defend herself. And to be honest, Alex was too tired to go against it. Instead, she felt a tear slip down her face. And another one. Before she realized it, she was bawling her eyes out.

Maggie frowned at her sudden change of emotion, but moved forward to wrap her arms around her nonetheless. Holding her, kissing her forehead.

"I'm just… _so tired_ …"

And Maggie understood. She nodded, and held her a little tighter. Alex was in serious pain, and the entire situation was so bizarre and crazy. Maggie was ready to cry too, as she remembered what Alex had said. The voice recordings.

It meant that Alex had been working on solving the mystery too, listening to that iPod. It meant that she'd been selfish to assume that Alex wasn't interested in the case.

It meant that they were on the same page.

_The same page._

Maggie let go of Alex, looking her in the eyes. "Babe… Where did you put the book?"

"I-In the bedroom, where you left it…" Alex sniffed, wiping her nose with the back of her hand. Maggie untangled herself from Alex, and ran into the bedroom to retrieve it.

"83… It could be a birthyear, but…" Maggie flipped through the pages. "…Maybe Julia was talking about the book. A page number."

Alex watched her, as she flicked the pages, until she got to the right one, and read the page quickly, her eyes darting from left to right.

After a few moments, her eyes widened. " _Oh god_ …"

"What? What is it?!" The uneasy feeling in Alex's stomach returned, as Maggie turned the book 180 degrees, so Alex could read the paragraph she was pointing too.

' _Maybe Sophie doesn't want to be found. Faye seems to think that she has just walked off the face of the Earth to die alone, to not let anyone see her like that: vulnerable, weak and scared. But I know better. The Sophie I know is too proud to give up in the face of danger. The Sophie I know would never leave everything and everyone behind. This was all The Beast. If it thinks that it can take her away from me, it's mistaking. We may not be bonded by blood, but she is still my mother.'_

"H-her mother…?" Maggie frowned, trying to make sense of it.

But for Alex, it was the puzzle piece that finally completed the picture.

"It's Alice. The woman in the recordings, the woman Amélie was based on. It's Laurent's daughter."


	14. Chapter Fourteen

Maggie rubbed at her eyes tiredly. Her headache had returned to an almost splitting degree as she once again tried to make sense of the situation.

 Laurent had written a book about his daughter trying to solve his wife’s disappearance. Instead of trying to find her himself, apparently. The daughter and her girlfriend had tried to find her, but that Beast – whatever it was – had come for them, and had killed one or both of them.

 And now, it seemed that Alex and Maggie were doomed to repeat the story to find Julia. But why would Laurent have them follow the story if it meant that they would get killed if he didn’t have anything to do with it?!

 Every time she closed her eyes, she saw that poor woman in the basement again. How her initial thought had been of Alex, how _convinced_ she’d been in her drugged up mind that Alex was actually down there, dead, with rats eating at her beautiful face… _God._

“I slept during most of the ride up here.” She stated, while turning to Alex. The woman had her eyes closed, but Maggie knew that she was still awake by how her hands were fidgeting, and playing with the blanket underneath her.

 “Mmmhm.” Alex confirmed with a moan, not opening her eyes. Maggie sat down on the edge of the couch, gently putting a hand on Alex’s shoulder. “But Al, do you remember when we were driving up from Laurent’s house? There was a small cabin between his house and here, right? Because you were talking about it, joking that if we fought, you’d go over there and sleep on their couch.”

The agent gave a weak grin. “I remember, yeah.”

Maggie frowned at Alex’s passiveness. “Babe, it’s a _cabin_. With a phone, probably. Maybe even people.”

 “… It’s also miles away, and we’d have to hike through the woods again. I can’t.”

 “You can’t. But _I_ can.” Maggie swallowed thickly. “Your leg is… _bad_ , Alex. And I really, _really_ don’t want us to split up again, especially with everything happening, but we have to be realistic. We have to get help, we’re not playing their games, we can call for an investigation from the local PD, maybe even federal, but _we_ – the two of us – we can’t do anything like this.”

 Alex sighed. She knew that Maggie was right. Yet as much as she’d pleaded with her earlier to leave her behind and get help, she actually didn’t want Maggie to go out there by herself again, hiking through the woods and getting lost.

 “Look, I’ll follow the main road, okay? I’ll just walk alongside it, maybe with some luck a car passes and I can get help faster.” The detective continued. “It’s the only thing left to do.”

 Alex tried to stay strong. She really did. And she was halfway through forming a sentence that was telling Maggie to be careful, when she choked on her words, and mumbled instead.

“ _I don’t want you to leave._ ”

 Maggie smiled sadly, wrapping her arms around Alex, and kissing her temple. “When this is over, we’re taking a _real_ vacation. I’m talking hotel, swimming pool, too much food and no weird French writers.”

 Alex laughed. “I’d like that. Double honeymoon.”

 “I doubt this can be called a honeymoon. Although it kind of fits our lifestyle.”

 That, Alex couldn’t argue with. She laced her fingers together with Maggie’s, and looked her in the eyes. “I don’t want you to go, but you have to.”

 Maggie nodded. She knew how Alex felt. “I’m going to lock and barricade all the doors and windows first. I’ll put everything you need within arm’s reach, alright? I shouldn’t be gone for more than an hour or two, but if I’m gone too long…”

 She didn’t finish the sentiment, but she didn’t need to. Because Alex looked up at her with such love and adoration, that it took her another second to catch her breath.

 “Take one of the rifles with you.” Alex pointed to the table. “Enough ammo. Get a flashlight too. And _don’t_ take any risks. Just go straight down the road, don’t stray from the path.”

 “Easy, Red Riding Hood.” Maggie flashed her dimples, though Alex saw that it wasn’t a full-on smirk. Just a quick attempt to lighten the mood.

 But Alex’s expression remained somber. “Just be careful. I love you so much, please come back in one piece.”

 “Same for you, Danvers.” Maggie leaned forward and kissed Alex passionately. “Just stay inside, watch some TV.” She leaned back, tilting her head. “Maybe it’s all in our heads after all. Maybe Laurent laced that tea with hallucinogenic drugs and we’re just lying on the bed tripping balls.”

 The corners of Alex’s mouth curled upwards. “Imagine that.”

 After making sure that Alex had everything she needed to be comfortable for a few hours, Maggie grabbed a rifle from the table, filled her pockets with ammunition, and walked over to the front door, the only door that Alex had a visual on – also the only one she couldn’t barricade.

 "I love you.” Was the last thing Maggie said over her shoulder, as she closed the door behind her.

 As soon as Alex was alone, she felt a weird feeling of loneliness creep inside her. She felt vulnerable without knowing that Maggie was at least close to her, and a part of her – the part that loved Maggie with all of her heart – was already halfway through yelling at her to come back.

 But the agent in her knew that the only way they would get out there is if they’d take the risk of getting help. The entire situation of Julia being missing and Alice being dead was tragic, absolutely so. But like Maggie said – they were both injured and traumatized, and they really needed a break. At that point, she couldn’t care less.

She reached for the TV remote, and aimed it at the screen while pressing the ‘on’-button. Maybe some horrible reality show would ease her mind. At the least it could fill the eerie silence of the cabin.

She zapped through the channels absently, settling on a random dating show she’d never heard of, and trying not to think about anything happening outside the cabin. While Maggie lingered in the back of her mind instantly. She absolutely despised feeling so helpless, her leg making it unable to even move without sharp pain shooting through her entire body.

In the field, whenever she got hurt, she had a team of agents, equipment, or at least her sister to back her up. Now, she had none of it. Just the silence of the cabin, being filled with horrible, fabricated drama coming from the speakers.

A beep coming from the TV made her look up, as her mouth went dry.

‘ _Your Smart-TV is now connected to the internet.’_

Oh God.

Immediately, she scrambled for the remote again. If she could send out a message, if she could get help… _Please_ , if this could just work out…

“Maggie!” She yelled, her stomach somersaulting at the thought of this nightmare maybe finally being over.

But nobody replied to her call. Alex realized the detective was long gone, off to get help.

On her own.

And it dawned on Alex that splitting up had – after all – been a horrible idea.

 


	15. Chapter Fifteen

" _Let's just watch some TV." A casual shrug, as she flopped down onto the couch. Finley entered the cabin, her eyes widening. "This is your dad's cabin?! Holy shit, this is insane!"_

" _He barely comes here. He lives a few miles down the road, this is just something he bought for fun." Alice waved the luxury away with a vague hand gesture. "It's been years since I've been here myself, seems like he has nowhere else left to put his money."_

_Finley spun around, taking in the interior. "Well, then, I'm glad at least you're inspiring him. Look at this place!"_

" _If only I'd do more than inspire him." Alice grunted. Finley noticed the change in her girlfriend's mood, and took a seat next to her on the couch. "What do you mean?"_

_The short-haired woman shrugged. "Just… He's been using those books as a cover-up for being a horrible father, he's creating his ideal daughter in Amélie, but he doesn't want anything to do with me."_

" _Then why did you come here?" Finley asked, after she took a moment of silence to acknowledge what Alice had said. "I mean, you didn't have to. We could have just gone back home."_

_Alice shook her head. "I have to be here for Julia. She's dying. I… I hate that she told them to stop the treatment."_

_Finley nodded, wrapping her arms around her. "I know, baby. I know."_

_Alice sighed, dismissing the personal conversation, and flashing a weak grin at her girlfriend. "Let's just… Watch that horrible dating show you like. Dad and Julia are coming over later."_

* * *

 

Alex had never shaken this much in her life. Her hands were moving up and down furiously as she forced herself to click the remote as fast as possible. There was a Skype-app on the television, and logging in took  _forever_. She kept typing wrong letters because the tremor in her hands made it hard to press the tiny buttons. But after what felt like eternity, she was finally there.

Kara. She needed Kara. She was the only one that could get there in less than 30 minutes. Her  _bulletproof, nearly invincible_  sister. She needed her to get the both of them out of the hellhole their getaway had become.

She pressed the green 'call'-button. There was a slim chance that Kara was sitting in front of her computer right now, and she doubted her sister had the app installed on her phone, but  _just let this work out, please._

Her heart stopped when the call connected. Kara, looking tired, rubbing her eyes and sitting on her apartment couch appeared. Pixelated and grainy, but  _Kara._

"Alex!" Kara frowned. "Hey! Not that I'm complaining, but do you know what time it i-…"

"Yes!" Alex yelled, breaking off her sister's sentence. "Kara,  _please_ , you need to come here."

Kara frowned, leaning closer to the screen. "Al? Is everything okay?"

"No! Kara, me and Maggie are-…"

Alex was interrupted, as it all went dark.

She breathed heavily, her eyes widening as she looked around, seeing nothing. "No, no… NO! KARA!"

God  _damn it._

The power had to have gone out. The room was pitch dark, except the few rays of moonlight that managed their way through the windows barricaded with furniture. And the screen that had shown her sister seconds ago, was now completely black.

And the timing was absolutely ridiculous.

… _Too ridiculous._

It was as if someone knew that she was trying to get help.

As if someone had been watching her.

Alex lowered her leg from the couch onto the ground, but she knew that there was no way she could put weight on it. Instead, she reached for the rifle Maggie had put on the coffee table, checking if it was loaded.

And then, Alex got a strange feeling, like she wasn't alone in the cabin anymore.

She braced herself for what she was about to see, and carefully turned her head to the kitchen door.

There was nothing standing in the living room with her. She took a slow, deep breath trying to steady herself. She was definitely getting paranoid, staying calm was the only way to handle the situation.  _Come on, Danvers. Kara had to have seen that something was wrong, she was probably on her way there._

Alex closed her eyes, trying to take comfort in the fact that – though short and chaotic – Kara had to have interpreted the Skype call as a sign that something was wrong. She clenched them shut, as she tried to do the math in her head. Kara could probably do two miles a minute. They were probably about 1500 miles away from National City, so…it would take her a little over twelve minutes to get there.

_Twelve minutes, she could do that._

Alex sighed in relief at the thought of finally getting help, and turned back to the television.

Now finally seeing the figure standing outside next to the window, staring at her.

Its eyes wide, its mouth trapped in a huge smile, with razor sharp teeth that looked  _anything but_ human.

It was staring at her with wide eyes. Looking ready to strike any second, but remaining pressed against the window, smiling.

Alice and Finley had been right in calling it  _The Beast_ , because despite the similar anatomy, it didn't look human at all. It looked like something straight out of a horror movie.

And instead of trying to figure out what type of  _thing_  it was with her knowledge of alien species and races, Alex was frozen in fear. She didn't dare to breathe.

If she blinked, it could be right beside her.

And she was sure that wide-eyed smile would be burned in her mind forever.


	16. Chapter Sixteen

Maggie tried  _really hard_ not to let her imagination run wild. She didn't want to think about what evils could be staring at her through the trees as she walked in the middle of the road, but willing herself not to think about it made it ten times worse.

It didn't feel real. She was walking into danger without as much as a bulletproof vest. Even the slightest movement of her head made the pounding return. Something was  _seriously_ wrong; she knew she had a concussion, but could she actually have brain damage? Maybe that was why she felt like she was on the verge of hallucinating.

She clutched the rifle in her hands tighter, ready to aim at the first sight of danger.

Alex crossed her mind again. The feeling of having to leave Alex behind on that couch, barely able to move… If something happened to her, Maggie would never forgive herself. If she walked back into that cabin and Alex was lying… _dead_ …

Maggie shook her head, before a new spike of pain settled behind her eyes.  _Fuck_. Don't think about it.

The cabin had to be up this road, from what she remembered. She hadn't paid much attention to it, but… there  _had_  to be something around here. Someone.

After a few minutes of walking, she noticed herself slow down. Exhaustion was setting in. Now that the adrenalin of the night was slowly wearing off, Maggie became aware of how sore and stiff she was from the tumble down the slope. She couldn't take much more walking, now that she felt like she was out of immediate danger.

Finally, after almost considering going back, or stopping to lay down for a few seconds, she saw the shape of a house in the distance. Her heart leapt at the thought of safety.

Immediately, she picked up the pace, jogging towards the cabin and shooting prayers to every single thing in the sky that would listen to her that she could get help.

"Please… Please…" She whispered to herself as she neared the building.

Before she could run up to the porch, she felt a hand on her mouth, and an arm around her waist, pulling her down to the ground. She tried to scream, but it came out a muffled cry as she fell down onto the road, taken by surprise completely, and dropping the rifle while doing so.

"Shhhhh! Don't let them hear you!" A voice hushed her, the hand remaining on her mouth. Maggie felt like she couldn't breathe, and tried desperately to pull the hand off, glaring up at her attacker.

_Laurent._

"What the hell!" She hissed as he finally loosened his grip on her face. "Let go of me!"

"Hush!" He whispered forcefully, pulling her away from the road. "They don't know about the Beast!"

"You mean about you?!" Maggie shot back angrily. Though injured, she could still hold her own against the old man, getting herself free from his grip in a matter of seconds.

Laurent shook his head. "I can't go to the police. You need to help me."

Maggie chuckled humorlessly as she glared at him. "Fuck off. I swear to god, I will fucking blow your brains out if you try to stop me from getting my girlfriend help. She's hurt, and it's all  _your_  fault."

Laurent winced in sympathy, and Maggie's stomach turned at his remorseful expression. She hadn't expected him to feel sorry for them.

"If I really wanted the two of you dead, why did I give you guns?!" He snarled. "I lost my  _wife_."

"I don't give a  _fuck_."

"You're lying." Laurent smiled weakly. "I can see it. You want to know what's going on, but you're scared."

Maggie laughed humorlessly, hearing her own voice tremble. "Damn right I'm scared! You have your daughter's  _body_  in a crawlspace in your basement, you fucking psycho!"

She noticed Laurent's lip trembling, as he looked away. Either he was a great actor, or…

"I had to keep her downstairs. She was hurt, if he saw her, he wouldn't hesitate to come back to kill her. He gets off on the smell of blood. But… She died before I could get her help."

"Then why didn't you bury her, or-…" Maggie felt tears sting her eyes. "How could you _do_  that to your own daughter? Keep her in there until she's rotten?!"

"She was onto something." Laurent smiled sadly. "She was so smart. I never told her how much I loved her, I was always too busy with writing my books. Writing her." He trailed off. "I knew that she knew something about the Beast. She'd seen something before her death, but she never got the chance to tell me."

"What about her girlfriend?" Maggie asked. Unconsciously, she'd felt herself pulled into his story. The cabin behind her lingered in the back of her mind, but oddly enough, she felt herself willing to listen to whatever Laurent was saying.

"I never saw her again." The man shook his head. "She disappeared, like my Julia. Alice sacrificed herself for her, like Julia did for me. I don't know where she is."

"Why did you write the book, Laurent?" Maggie looked at him. "Why did you want us to follow it?"

It took him a while to respond, his mouth opening and closing a few times. Finally, he settled on a sigh. "Your girlfriend, she… She looks so much like her..."

Maggie didn't like where the answer was going.

"…It just felt like I got her back. I wanted to hear Alice again. I wanted to feel close to her again. I recorded everything they'd said the evening of her death, and I wrote it all down. So that… So that she wouldn't be lost."

She was trying to make sense of it all, her detective mode finding its way to the surface again. "Why didn't you call the police? Why didn't you get help?!"

Laurent's painful gaze turned to unadulterated sorrow. "Julia told me she didn't want to get the cancer treatment anymore, but the doctors advised her not to leave. So one night, she asked me… To take her away from the hospital. And I brought her here to the cabin, and then she disappeared, and… my Alice died, and…" He took a shaky breath, tears streaming down his face. "They would never believe I had nothing to do with it. The both of you didn't."

"There's a difference between a police investigation and getting scared to death." Maggie shook her head, trying not to get caught up in details. "I'm going to go inside that cabin, get help, and I'll  _personally_  make sure that the investigation is clean, and that you're  _not_  a suspect, okay? But you need to let me get help."

Laurent grabbed her hand. An act that surprised Maggie completely, as he forced her to look up at him with that same sad smile. A look of despair. "We can't leave. The Beast, it… It's always there. Whenever I try to leave, whenever I get in my car, he follows me."

Maggie put a hand on his, trying to sound as certain as she could. "Laurent. That Beast you're talking about, is probably an alien, okay? I've seen dozens and dozens of aliens, and I know how to fight every one of them. Alex is a federal agent, she hunts aliens for a living. I  _promise_  you, it's all in your head. We'll  _kill_  it, and it'll never hurt you again. Do it for Julia and Alice, please."

Laurent seemed to consider it, before giving a slow, tentative nod. "Okay. For my girls."

Maggie smiled gratefully, as she realized that their horror was finally coming to an end. She stepped backwards, picking up the rifle from the ground where she'd dropped it, and moving towards the door of the house.

"There's nobody home." Laurent supplied, walking up behind her. "It belongs to a couple, they're never here."

"Well, they'll have a phone." Maggie said as she tried to open the door, but found to her frustration that it was locked. She took a step back, before raising her leg and kicking the door off its hinges on pure willpower and adrenalin.  _Alex would be fine, she'd get her leg looked at, they would be okay…_

She flicked the lights on, and looked around. The cabin was much more outdoorsy than Laurent's, without a television or any form of luxury. Maggie cursed under her breath as she looked around, trying to find the phone.

"Or maybe…" She heard Laurent stop himself behind her.

She craned her head, arching an eyebrow. "Maybe what?"

The man looked ill at ease. "…Maybe the Beast got them too."

"Wait…" Maggie realized how stupid she was being, as she turned to face Laurent completely, taking a step in his direction. "Don't you have a phone on you?"

He shook his head. "There's no reception here, I told you."

Maggie nodded, turning around to continue looking for the landline. But something felt off. Like Laurent wasn't completely convinced, or cooperating for that matter. She clutched the rifle a little more tightly while still trying to appear nonchalant.

"Maybe it's in the bedroom?" Laurent supplied, pointing to the door. Maggie didn't feel like leaving him out of her sight, but realized that the will to help Alex was stronger than her suspicions.

She walked up to the door and turned the knob, seeing a staircase leading down to what she assumed was the basement. She frowned, and took a step back, already turning around to open her mouth and tell Laurent that he'd been pointing her to the wrong door.

But the sight in front of her made her stomach turn.

Laurent was lying on the floor near the couch, unmoving.

Maggie immediately ran towards him, raising the rifle and spinning around, trying to find whoever – or whatever – was responsible.

She froze when she felt the barrel of a gun pressed into her back, and heard a voice whispering in her ear. "Drop it."

The detective took a shaky breath, realizing that she was in trouble. Was it the owners of the house, thinking they were trespassing?

Instinctively, she raised her left hand, and lowered the rifle onto the floor with her right, before bringing it up into the air as well.

"You shouldn't be here." The voice whispered. It was a woman, but that didn't tell her anything.

"I need help." Maggie's voice shook. "Please. My girlfriend and I, we had an accident in the woods, and she's hurt really bad, she needs a hospital."

"What are you doing with him?!" The woman sneered.

Maggie's eyes lowered to look at Laurent's form. She noticed he was coming to; the woman must have pistol-whipped him. "He's the owner of the cabin we're staying at."

"That man is a monster." Maggie felt the hatred in the woman's voice, as she watched Laurent open his eyes, trying to regain his bearings. After a wince, and a hasty look around the cabin, his eyes widened as they settled on the sight in front of him.

He barely got the word out, but it was loud enough for Maggie to hear.

And for everything to change once again.

"… _Finley?"_


	17. Chapter Seventeen

God. Oh god.

"Y-you're Finley?" Maggie whispered.

"Finley, we can-…" Laurent tried, but the woman hissed. "Shut up! You don't get to talk, after what you did! You fucking  _animal_!"

Maggie was finally able to step forward, and turn around to face the woman.

She had brown hair, tied in a messy ponytail, and it was obvious that she'd been on the run. There were dark circles under her eyes and she was shaking with anger, the gun in her hands now trained on Laurent's shape on the floor.

As much as she pitied the woman, she didn't want her to shoot him either.

"Finley-…"

The woman's brown eyes darted to her. "Don't move. Stay back. I need to do this."

"No." Maggie shook her head and took another step in her direction. "Listen to me."

"Stop." Finley winced. "Stop talking. He's a  _monster_ , he could have  _helped_  her, but he dumped her in the basement!"

Maggie knew that the woman was talking about Alice.  _She knew_. She understood where Finley's anger was coming from. She'd probably be the same in her situation.

But that didn't make it right.

"I know what he did to Alice." Maggie tried. If she could identify with her, if she could get her to trust her… Her detective instincts took over. It wasn't the first time she'd negotiate.

Finley's eyes flitted over to her. "How do you know her name?!"

"Because I saw her." Maggie said bluntly. "I saw what he did. He's a monster for that, I agree. But he's been trying everything he can to make sure she's avenged."

"His  _'Beast'_ , right?!" The brunette scoffed, shaking her head. "Looks like he dragged you into his bullshit too. He killed her, I'm sure of it. He's just trying to cover it up."

"I found Julia."

This silenced Finley immediately. Laurent, from the floor, let out a surprised gasp. Maggie nodded quickly, continuing. "Yes. I found her, she was burnt horribly, but she was still alive. She's around here, wandering. She was the one that showed us that Alice is Laurent's daughter. And I know what you went through that night, Finley. He wrote all of it down. We know your suffering, he made us suffer too. But shooting him won't bring her back."

The gun in Finley's hands trembled. Maggie knew that she was getting emotional. That could mean things were going well, or that could mean she'd finally snap and pull the trigger.

And as much as she wanted to save him, there was no way she'd jump in front of that bullet. She had Alex to go back to.

Another trust-tactic, then.

"Finley, look at me."

When the woman complied, Maggie swallowed thickly. "His 'Beast' is real. It's probably an alien, something with acidic capabilities. There's a long list, I'd have to call in people to come help. But it's probably just something that attacked the four of you. I deal with aliens all the time, it's my job. I can handle this."

"You don't know what happened." Finley laughed quietly. "You don't know how she died."

"No, I don't." Maggie had to admit.

" _He_  was there." Finley moved forward, kicking the man in the ribs. Maggie winced as Laurent gasped for air and clutched his side. "He was there, me and Alice were outside because she heard a noise. She said she'd seen Laurent staring at us through the window."

Maggie nodded, giving Finley the space to tell her story. At least if she was focused on that, she couldn't shoot him.

"… Alice said she had a bad feeling about being in the open. I was telling her to go back inside if it freaked her out, when apparently, she saw something near the lake. She walked onto the pier to look for it, and… Something dragged her down."

Maggie's stomach dropped. She hadn't considered the possibility that their alien would be aquatic. It  _would_  explain some things, but certainly not all of them.

"…I jumped after her, instinctively. Managed to get a grip on her, I pulled her back up, onto the sand. She was coughing, vomiting…" Finley trailed off for a second, taking a shaky breath. It was obvious that she was still traumatized about the experience.

Maggie didn't blame her.

"…I put a hand on her chest to help her breathing, and then I noticed that there was blood  _everywhere._  She was bleeding out, I couldn't do anything. It went so fast… And then she whispered something…  _'Laurent'_ , she said." Finley grimaced, a tear slipping down her cheek. But her wince made room for anger immediately. "Not ' _I love you_ ', not  _'I'll always be with you_ ', she fucking said  _his_  name!"

She turned to Laurent, hatred now covering every feature on her tired face. "And you didn't even  _love_  her! You didn't care about her, all you did was write that  _fucking_  book about her, instead of getting to know her! I know you killed her because you didn't want to deal with her anymore, you were tired of her after Julia went missing!"

Finley raised the gun again. And this time, Maggie knew that she was livid. The detective took another step in the woman's direction. "Hey… No. This isn't how this ends. Alice wouldn't want you to be a murderer."

Finley laughed weakly, glancing up at her. "Alice would still want to be alive."

After that, she turned back to Laurent, and pulled the trigger.

* * *

 

Alex was frozen. She couldn't break her eye-contact with the figure, out of fear that it would disappear, or be next to her the second she blinked.

But she couldn't stay there forever. She leaned forward, her fingers inching towards the safety.

She clicked it off, quickly raised the rifle and fired it in the figure's direction.

When the sound of breaking glass had died, he had disappeared.

"Fuck…" She whispered. He could have gone anywhere. She hoped that Maggie would be back soon. Not being able to move was a disaster, she was a sitting duck.

She pulled herself off the couch, and lowered herself down. If she could hide somewhere, or maybe get to a spot where she could see him coming from all angles…

A noise behind her. She spun around, raising the rifle once more. But the noise came from outside.

She  _had to move._

Slowly, careful not to put any weight on her injured leg, she hopped towards a back window, gazing through one of the cracks of the chair barricading it. But she saw nothing but the dark night.

She made her way to the back door, and pulled away the chairs in front of it.

Alex knew that going out again was a horrible, horrible idea. But inside she basically had a target painted on her back. At least hunting it made her feel like she was in charge, like she could take it on.

After all, it was  _just an alien_.

As soon as she walked outside, she realized where the sound was coming from.

The pier.

She hopped in the direction of the pier, checking all around her. But her surroundings were completely clear. Maybe he could turn invisible, or teleport? It would explain a lot.

She stopped in her tracks as soon as she reached the pier. If it was an ambush, she was walking right into its trap.

" _Help!"_

Alex's head shot up at the cry. Just in time to see the figure a few yards away from her in the lake, bobbing up and down. It was clear that whoever it was, was drowning.

_Shit_.

It was probably a trick.

But she couldn't do nothing. If that really was a human, maybe Julia, or…

_Was it Maggie?!_

The figure was too far away, Alex couldn't make out any features. Only splashing arms. Even the cry for help had sounded garbled.

_Oh god, what if it was Maggie…_

Alex speeded onto the pier, yelling. "Maggie! Maggie, is that you?!  _Please_!"

There had to be a lifebuoy somewhere…

Before she could do anything, something tugged at her bad leg roughly, and she cried out as it buckled.

She felt herself slip down the side of the pier.

And being dragged into the icy cold water.


	18. Chapter Eighteen

One bullet, clean through his abdomen.

Not instantly fatal, but he'd die for sure if he didn't get help soon enough.

And he was  _screaming_. Like a pig getting roasted alive.

Maggie winced at the sounds, and tried to calculate Finley's next move. Was she going to turn the gun on Maggie and shoot her too?

The brunette spat at Laurent's feet, and lowered the gun, looking at Maggie. "You said you were here with your girlfriend?"

The detective nodded quickly. "She's back at his cabin. She's hurt, I-… her leg. It's bad. And that thing is still out there."

Finley seemed to understand her, as she crouched down, picked up the hunting rifle, and handed it to her. "What's her name?"

"Alex." Maggie replied, her gaze settling on the figure at their feet. "We should at least put pressure on it."

"I wish I was a better shot." Finley grunted. "Should have gone right through his head."

She seemed to consider her situation for a second, before sighing. "Fine, if you want to delay his misery, go right ahead. I don't understand why you'd sympathize with him."

"He lost his wife and dau-…" Maggie physically bit her tongue to prevent her from blurting out the last part, but it hadn't been lost on Finley, who growled and took a step in her direction, raising the gun again. "He did  _not_  lose a daughter. He was no father to her!"

"I know. I know, I'm sorry." Maggie shook her head. "I misspoke."

"Fuck." Finley curse to no-one in particular, watching as Maggie knelt down by Laurent's side, ignoring his pained cries, and reached for a blanket on the couch to put pressure on the wound in his stomach.

She knew it was useless: with no medical supplies around, it was only a matter of minutes.

And as much pain as he'd caused them, he didn't deserve to bleed out like this after what he'd been through.

"We need to call for help. Is there a phone here?"

Finley nodded in the direction of a landline on the wall. Maggie sighed in relief, and left Laurent's side to walk towards it.

" _911, what's your emergency?"_

"This is National City detective Maggie Sawyer. I need help on my location, at least two wounded people. An anti-alien squad would be nice too, we have an unknown non-human hostile."

" _We tracked your location, detective Sawyer. Can you give any more details?"_

"A cabin, by the lake. There's a woman with a serious leg injury, and a man with a GSW through the abdomen."

" _Stay put, detective. Can you see the hostile alien anywhere?"_

"No. I need to go back to the cabin, my girlfriend is there. Just meet us there."

Ignoring the man's protests, she hung up the phone, and turned to Finley. "We need to move."

"I'm not taking him with me." Finley shook her head. "He deserves it."

Maggie knew that carrying Laurent would only slow her down. Yet she also knew that making the decision to leave him there would probably mean his death.

There would be moments of blame for losing a life. But now wasn't the time. Alex still needed her help.

So instead of protesting, she nodded at Finley, raised her rifle, and walked out of the house, and back onto the main road, the other woman right beside her.

"I'm really sorry about Alice."

Finley took a deep breath, and shrugged. "Her family was super fucked up. Her dad didn't love her, Julia wasn't her real mother… She had nobody but me."

Maggie thought about it. The contact with her parents was long gone. And truth be told, apart from coworkers, exes and acquaintances at the bar, Maggie didn't really have anybody either. Alex was the first person to ever make her feel safe. And with Alex came so many people that she could talk to, that she could trust… If she didn't have Alex, she didn't have anybody.

"I get that feeling." Maggie nodded. "But it doesn't make it hurt less."

"No." Finley sighed heavily. "It doesn't."

* * *

 

Alex felt her lungs fill up with water.

She was transported back to Malverne's tank. Only this time, she knew nobody was coming. Maggie was far away, and the Beast was right beside her.

She wouldn't win this.

A long, sharp nail dug its way into her chest and she cried out, her mouth filling with water instantly. She raised a weak fist to attempt to punch it, but it barely recoiled.

The nail was dragged down, and Alex felt it rip her skin apart. The pain was unbearable.

She was on the verge of blacking out. Her last thoughts of Maggie. Gorgeous, wonderful, smart and sexy badass detective Maggie Sawyer.  _God_ , how she was going to miss that woman.

The irony of the situation wasn't lost on her. Laurent lost his Julia, Finley lost her Alice. And now Maggie was losing her Alex.

She guessed the Beast was due its final sacrifice after all.

Her eyes drooped shut. The last thing she felt was something wrapping around her arm, pulling.

Then it all went black.

* * *

 

Maggie laughed weakly. "Guess you and I have more in common than I thought."

They'd been walking for a few minutes, getting back in the direction of the cabin, when they heard a loud  _bang_. Instinctively, Maggie dropped down to the ground, pulling Finley down with her. The brunette grunted at the impact, as Maggie looked around, trying to find the source of the explosion.

"What the hell was that?!" Finley whispered next to her.

"I don't know, but we're too close to the cabin…" Maggie stumbled back to her feet and started walking faster.

As odd as it was, Maggie seemed to recognize the bang. She'd witnessed her fair share of explosions: bombs, building collapses, gas accidents, alien kamikaze's… But this… This sounded…  _more familiar._

She stopped dead in her tracks as she realized where she'd heard it before. Finley noticed her struggle, and frowned. "Hey, you alright?"

Of course she recognized the sound.

She'd been linking it to red and blue ever since she first heard it.

The sound barrier being broken mid-flight.

_Supergirl._

Immediately, Maggie started running as fast as her bruised body would allow her. A confused Finley close behind her. "Maggie, wait!"

The detective had no time for waiting. Supergirl arriving meant that Alex had managed to call for help on her own. That Alex had managed to find a way out.

The emotion of things finally being over hit her like a ton of bricks, and Maggie felt like she couldn't breathe. But that didn't stop her from sprinting back up onto the driveway of the cabin, tears pricking at her eyes because  _everything was going to be okay._

She froze when she heard an animalistic wail coming from behind the house. It was nothing like she'd ever heard before, and the voice didn't belong to Alex at all, it was much higher and much more desperate than her girlfriend had ever sounded.

She raised the rifle, running around the cabin, mentally trying to prepare herself for what she was about to see.

But nothing could have prepared her for the sight of Kara, in her Supergirl costume, holding a deathly pale, soaked wet and bleeding Alex in her arms, screaming for her sister to wake up.

Next to her, she vaguely registered Finley's shocked gasp.

She ran. Ran to be by her girlfriend's side. To hold her, to tell her that everything was going to be fine.

She didn't see the alien coming.

Pulling itself out of the water, and ready to go down fighting, as he lunged at her, his mouth opening wide and spraying acid all in her direction.

Kara was frozen in place, holding Alex.

And Maggie was defenseless.


	19. Chapter Nineteen

Maggie screamed.

She felt something heavy on her chest, shoving her down onto the ground roughly. The wind was knocked out of her completely, turning the scream into a muffled groan as her back hit the dirt.

Next to her, she vaguely recognized the sound of Kara yelling her name. Her mind was racing, but every thought she was trying to have came up blank.

Then, the pain caught up to her. And she screamed again.

Her right shoulder was burning intensely, like it was caught on fire. She clutched it with her left hand, but that only caused the burning to spread. She moaned pathetically, her breathing turning to quick, short gasps, as she realized what had happened.

_He got me._

In the distance, she heard something shifting. Within a second, she saw Kara's form flitting over towards the alien, screaming and punching everywhere she could.

The detective grunted, rolling onto her side. She didn't trust her voice, but didn't need to, as she realized with a jolt that there was another person lying next to her.

Nearly unrecognizable.

The skin smoking, blistering all over, and almost looking like it was melted off. Their body shaking, sizzling nauseatingly, and heaving strained, weak breaths.

Maggie's eyes widened, as she crawled up, the pain in her arm lingering but momentarily forgotten at the sight in front of her.

" _Finley…_ " She whispered, not knowing which part of the woman's body she could touch without causing her excruciating pain, not knowing which burnt hand to hold, not…

Finley wheezed; reaching for Maggie with a trembling hand. Maggie started sobbing instantly. "No… No, no, what did you  _do?!_ "

Finley had taken it. She'd pushed her aside, and taken most of the acid that the alien had spit at her.

She'd sacrificed herself to save Maggie.

The brunette woman, her hair now long forgotten as the entirety of it was burnt away, wheezed again, and opened her mouth. " _A-lice…"_

And Maggie understood.

She'd finally be with her girlfriend again.

"No, no, you have to stay with me, okay? There's ambulances coming, they can help you.  _Please_ , Finley, just stay awake, please…" Maggie pleaded, though she knew it was a lost cause. There was nothing she could do to save the other woman, if she didn't want to be saved.

"I'm sorry… I'm  _so_  sorry..." Maggie whispered, while holding the woman, ignoring the burning it left on her hands. She didn't want to imagine the state of her shoulder. "It's okay, you'll see her soon. She's… She'll be waiting for you."

Finley's mouth seemed to curl up in a weak smile. "I…  _love you, Alice._ "

Maggie nodded, a watery grin mirroring the woman's. "She loves you too."

After that, she felt the woman go quiet and still in her arms.

Now finally becoming aware of her surroundings, she turned around to see that Supergirl was still fighting the alien, tossing it around over the lake.

But Alex…

_Alex._

Maggie gently lowered Finley's body down onto the ground, and sprinted over to where Alex was lying motionlessly.

She couldn't…  _Alex couldn't…_

"No, babe, you have to wake up." Maggie shook her head, the tears from earlier falling faster. "I'm  _not_  doing this without you. Not now, not ever. I'm  _marrying_  you. I'm spending the rest of my life with you. This isn't it,  _this isn't where this ends_."

Instinctively, she began to put pressure on Alex's chest wound. "You're  _not_  leaving me. You can't, Danvers. I still haven't beaten you at pool yet."

A wheezy breath below her. For a second, Maggie feared that it was the last one she'd ever heard coming from the beautiful woman below her.

But then, another weak moan turned into a cough, as the agent's pale face scrunched up. " _Ugh…_ "

Maggie laughed through her tears, nodding. "Come on, that's right, Alex. Open your eyes, let me see those beautiful eyes."

Somewhere in the distance, she heard sirens approaching. She ignored it, focusing on keeping Alex conscious, as she witnessed the woman struggle, and finally open her eyes to narrow slits. It took Alex a second to get her bearings, but then her eyes widened.

"Your  _arm_ …"

Maggie shook her head immediately. "Shh, don't worry about it. It's fine, it's fine… Just calm down… I'm here…"

A loud crash next to them made the both of them look up. Kara had just thrown the alien against the side of the cabin, rendering it motionless in a heap.

The detective had no sympathy for the alien. But seeing it lying beside Finley's mutilated body made her completely sick to her stomach.

"Maggie…" She heard Alex whisper below her. She craned her neck down immediately to look at her girlfriend. "What is it, baby?"

"I…" Alex winced as her position shifted. "I…  _never_  want to hike again."

Maggie smiled, and was whispering her agreement as Kara ran up to the couple again. "I'll fly her to the nearest hospital, Maggie. I'll be back as soon as I can to help you."

"Yes, please just… Get her help." The detective got up from her knees as she watched Kara lower down to take her sister in her arms and shoot up into the sky.

The sirens grew louder. Maggie covered her face with both hands, as she felt them tremble.

She couldn't break. Not here. She still had work to do.

She still had to recount every detail, make sure that everything was alright, that nobody would be in danger again.

_One alien._

One alien had broken the two of them. Out of the hundreds of aliens they knew, that they had fought, that they had cared about or loved… It was one little alien that had ensured that neither of them were going to get a good night's rest for a long time.

That the rest of her days were going to be filled with the horrible sight of Finley's burnt body, of Alex's torn leg, of Alice's rotting corpse. All because of  _one alien._

She'd never considered quitting the alien task force until now.

As the ambulances and police vans started piling up on the driveway of the cabin, Maggie sank to her knees. The pain and exhaustion of the night finally catching up to her.

She felt a hand on her back, and shook her head weakly, dismissing the concern with a wave of her shaky hand. "I'm fine, I just need a moment..."

Her body decided otherwise, as she fell forward into a pair of arms, her last thoughts of Alex.


	20. Chapter Twenty

Kara didn't know anything.

She was sitting in the waiting room of a far too small hospital for her liking, on a plastic chair that looked ready to collapse, her head buried in her hands.

What felt like hundreds of people had come up to her to ask her the same questions.  _What happened? Who did this?_

Truth was, Kara had absolutely no idea. She'd seen the alien up close, but hadn't recognized his form whatsoever. She didn't know what the hell happened to Alex and Maggie, let alone could she tell anyone what they'd been through.

The waiting was draining her. The woman sitting behind the reception desk, Rita – Kara had read from the nametag - had taken pity on her. Kara assumed that she'd googled her when she went to get a coffee from the machine in the corner, because the second she'd turned her back, the woman's incredulous glance at her outfit had turned into a warm smile.

"Do you know anything yet, Rita?" Kara looked up at her hopefully. She'd made sure that she was properly addressing the woman as soon as she entered the room, because she figured she'd be stuck in there for a pretty long time. The least she could do was stay as polite as possible under the circumstances.

Rita shook her head. "I'm sorry, Supergirl. Nothing yet. But I'm sure they'll tell you the second they know something."

Kara nodded weakly, sighing. The night's events kept playing over and over in her head. She'd fought aliens hundreds of times, but this? Feeling Alex's heartbeat fade under the surface of the water, pulling her up, feeling blood soak through every part of her uniform…

And then there was Maggie, that woman jumping in front of her, dying, and Maggie getting hit…  _Rao, none of it made sense._

She hadn't seen either of them since they arrived. Kara had sought the nearest hospital to get her sister help the fastest, but started to regret that decision, seeing as how the hospital was so small, she doubted this was where both Maggie and Alex would receive the care they needed.

Though it was good that the ER wasn't crowded with people. She was all alone with her thoughts, the ticking clock on the wall, and the reminder of death in the air.

A loud commotion made her look up. The doors to the ER flew open, as a few paramedics ran inside with a gurney, shouting things at the doctors receiving.

With three people in the ER, it had to be at capacity, Kara huffed to herself. She watched as they loaded the old man onto a different gurney, and sped off through the doors.

Kara dropped down onto the seat, never having felt so helpless in her life. There was nothing she could do for either of them. She couldn't make things right, she couldn't heal them. She had to wait to even know if they'd be okay.

The doors opened again, as a man stepped into the waiting room and greeted her, taking a seat next to her. He was dressed in a white lab coat, so Kara assumed he was a doctor.

"Supergirl." He greeted her. Kara cursed herself for being unable to change back into her civilian clothing. Kara Danvers couldn't get to Montana from National City that fast. She wanted to be there as Alex's sister, not as some superhero that barely managed to fight their attacker off.

She nodded, bracing herself. The man looked sincere and serious, but that could mean anything. "Agent Danvers is stabilized. She went into hypovolemic shock because of the blood loss, but we managed to get the bleeding under control. The cuts weren't as deep as we feared, so we managed to stitch them up without internal damage."

Kara sighed. That was good news.

But she feared that wasn't it.

The man frowned, and continued, as he looked her in the eyes. "…However…She had a leg wound. An open fracture in her tibia. The wound was infected, and not properly treated when it first happened. I'm afraid there was nothing we could do."

"So… She…" Kara opened and shut her mouth a few times, trying to get words out. What was he saying? Had Alex died anyway? Had-…

"We couldn't save her lower leg. She's in surgery right now, we need to amputate her right leg to just below her knee."

Kara was at a loss for words. Truth be told, she was too distracted by the chest wounds, and making sure that her sister was breathing, that she hadn't noticed the leg at all. And now… Alex was going to lose it.

She nodded anyway. If losing a part of her leg meant that Alex was going to be fine, then Kara would be there every step of the way to help her.

"This will mean some adaption, but she can live a perfectly normal life." The doctor eyed her again. "There are advanced prosthetics out there."

Kara tried to process the information. "A-and Maggie?"

He sighed. "I'm afraid that's a different story."

Kara's eyes widened, as a thousand thoughts and scenarios raced through her head. He took pity on her, continuing quickly. "She has acid burns on ¨9% of her body, including her arm and shoulder. We're not entirely sure what type of acid, so we aren't equipped to deal with it here. We're transferring her to a burn center in Washington."

"There is one in National City." Supergirl frowned. "Can we take her there? It's way closer to home."

The doctor laughed. "National City is 20 hours away from here-…"

"Not for me." Kara shook her head. "I can get her there in twenty minutes."

"I would advise against going the speed of sound with a seriously injured patient." The doctor countered. Kara sighed, admitting defeat. She just wanted to go home. With both her sisters.

Because yes, after the fighting, after seeing how Maggie would give her life for Alex, she was kind of like her sister too. And she knew for a fact that Maggie would be far better off getting the care she needed with alien experts in National City than in some burn unit in Nowheresville, Washington. At least in National City Kara could get the DEO behind tracking down what kind of alien it was. Here, she couldn't do anything.

If that was the only thing she could do, she'd grab the opportunity. She knew that once Maggie would wake up, she'd appreciate being home. So she looked at the doctor with a decisive scowl. "Is she cleared for flying?"

"She has a grade two concussion, so I wouldn't advise turbulence. I don't know how smooth your flight is, Supergirl. But I think it's a bad idea to hoist her over your shoulder and lift off."

After a few more minutes of arguments thrown back and forth, the doctor eventually agreed on letting Kara fly Maggie back under strict circumstances. Kara had agreed on them immediately.

Alex, however, was out of the question. As she was still in surgery that would take hours, Kara couldn't take her with her immediately. She'd have to stay in Montana until she was cleared to be flown home, something that could take hours.

As the doctor went back to the ER to clear Maggie and get everything ready, Kara was forced to wait once again. Only this time, she had hope that everything was going to be more or less alright.

The door opened, and Kara looked up to see a young woman running over to the reception desk, and talking to Rita quietly. She seemed to be in a panic. Rita said some words in a concerned voice that Kara didn't bother to listen to, as the woman turned around and dropped into a chair facing Kara, looking dejected.

She recognized the woman's pain. It was reflected in her own eyes, and she must've seen it, because she threw the superhero a weak smile. Kara returned it, and went back to staring at the clock. But she soon found she couldn't keep her eyes off the woman. The concerned hero in her took over.

"Are you alright?" Kara asked. "Can I get you anything?"

"No, thank you." The woman smiled weakly. "I just… I'm scared."

Kara nodded. She knew the feeling.

The woman looked up at her. "I recognize you. From the news. You're that superhero, right?"

The blonde smiled. "Yeah, I am."

"I visited National City for business a few weeks ago. You saved a bus full of people from a crash, I remember..." She tilted her head, thinking about it. Truth be told, Kara was just happy to distract the woman from the gnawing concern. She was happy to find a distraction herself in the woman. "What are you doing  _here_?!"

"Two…  _close friends of mine_  were injured in an accident during a stay here, in a cabin."

The woman winced. "I'm sorry to hear that. Will they be alright?"

"I hope so." Kara sighed.

The conversation lulled after that, but both women seemed content with the silence, though Kara quickly felt the earlier dread resettling in her stomach.

The doors to the ER opened, and the doctor from earlier walked out, pushing forward a wheelchair, with an angry looking Maggie sitting inside. Kara got up at the sight of her sister's fiancée. Her heart clenched at the sight of the stitches on her temple, and the thick gauze and bandages wrapped around her torso, shoulder and arm, probably to temporarily soothe the burns.

" _Maggie_ …" Kara whispered. The detective met her eyes, and seemed immensely relieved to see a familiar face. "K-…Supergirl!"

Kara ran up to her. "How are you feeling?" She noticed how pale and tired the woman looked.

Maggie smiled weakly, though it didn't reach her eyes. "I don't know. Everything's numb."

Kara didn't know whether that was from the acid, or from the amount of painkillers they'd pumped into her veins. But that didn't matter. "Maggie, I'm taking you to National City, okay?"

"Where's Alex?" Maggie asked weakly. "Did you see her? Is she okay?"

Not wanting to confuse her with a large explanation, Kara settled on nodding. "She's going to be fine, Maggie."

"Good." Maggie flashed another weak grin. "Good."

As the doctor pulled Kara aside to go over the details of the flight, Maggie looked around. The receptionist was too busy pretending to work while eavesdropping on Kara's conversation with the doctor.

She turned her head towards the door, but froze, as the shape of the other woman in the waiting room drew her attention completely.

Looking at her with a sad smile.

But Maggie's mouth went completely dry, as she scrambled to get out of the wheelchair. Kara noticed her movement from the corners of her eyes, and hurried to hold Maggie down. "Hey, easy! Don't move around, Maggie!"

"No...I…!" Maggie was close to hyperventilating. The doctor now crouched down in front of her, trying to get her to breathe properly. "Miss Sawyer…"

Maggie pushed them all away.

Because undoubtedly, she'd seen the woman in the waiting room before. Not even hours ago.

But the last time Maggie had seen her, she was being eaten by rats in the crawlspace of a damp and dark basement.

_Alice._


	21. Chapter Twenty-one

Maggie had a full blown panic attack. And Kara had no idea why.

She looked at the doctor hopelessly, but even he seemed stumped as he threw a look over his shoulder to the woman sitting on the plastic chair. "Ma'am, do you know this woman?"

"I-I've never seen her…" The woman replied shakily.

Maggie was thrashing about, trying to get out of the wheelchair, but Kara's grip on her good shoulder was too strong. "Maggie, calm down,  _please_. I'm taking you home."

"P-Please…" Maggie sobbed. "Get me away from her… Please…"

Kara nodded, and didn't hesitate in taking the detective in her arms carefully, ensuring that her head was tucked into Kara's chest, and that her bad arm would be protected during the flight.

Throwing an apologetic over her shoulder at the woman, she ran outside, and launched herself into the sky.

Leaving the three people in the waiting room behind, all baffled at the scene that had just unfolded. The doctor cleared his throat awkwardly. "I'm sorry, madam. She's been through a lot this evening."

"It's fine…" The woman whispered, shaking her head. Then, she looked back up at him. "Do you know anything about my father? I was on my way to visit him when I got a call that he was admitted here."

"I don't know anything about his condition, but I'll get you some info."

She nodded gratefully, as she watched him disappear.

* * *

The flight took slightly longer than Kara would have planned, because she was too scared of hurting Maggie by flying too fast. She heard the woman groan in her arms, and tried to comfort her the entire flight.

She hoped that J'onn would have sensed her distress and gotten everything ready by the time she was there. Because the only place she'd possibly know people that could treat alien burns, was the DEO itself.

By the time she landed on the balcony, Maggie had passed out. Due to pain, or exhaustion, Kara didn't know. But at least her suspicions had been right, there was a med team waiting for her.

Along with a concerned looking J'onn.

"Supergirl." He greeted her in his deep voice. "What happened?!"

"Alex called me. She-… They were attacked by an alien. Maggie got burned, a-and Alex is losing a leg and…" Kara was rambling nervously. She couldn't make sense of it.

The next thing she felt was J'onn's arms wrapping around her. "Calm down. Deep breaths, remember?"

She nodded, and willed herself to take three deep breaths – something Alex had taught her when they were young. She had to stay professional. It was the only way to help them.

"There was an alien. He sprayed poisonous acid, and Maggie got hit in the shoulder. The hospital said they didn't know how to treat it, so I brought her here. Alex is still there."

J'onn nodded. "What alien was it? Did you fight it?"

"I knocked it out, I don't know what else happened. I had to fly Alex to a hospital, she was bleeding out. It wasn't teleporting, it couldn't fly… It looked nearly human, except for a really broad smile." Kara listed off. She was stumped. There had to be hundreds of aliens fitting that description.

"It doesn't ring a bell." J'onn admitted. "…But that doesn't mean we won't find it. We'll take care of Maggie, and analyze the burn pattern, maybe it can help us. You should go back to Alex, I don't want her to be alone."

"Me neither." It broke Kara's heart to know that Alex and Maggie had been through hell, and that they would wake up on opposite sides of the country too. But their wellbeing and safety was more important.

And she needed to know what Alex knew about the alien.

So with another promise from J'onn that he would help Maggie, and keep Kara posted every step of the way, she launched herself back into the sky.

* * *

"I have an update." The doctor walked back into the waiting room, making the woman stand up to face him.

He took a seat next to her, folding his hands together. "Your father was shot in the abdomen. The bullet went through, so we didn't have to retrieve it, but it did perforate his stomach, and he lost a lot of blood. The woman making the 911 call did say there was a man shot, but it took police long to find him."

"So…" The woman frowned. It sounded like he was trying to brace her for bad news.

The doctor sighed. "We managed to stop the bleeding, but the risk of an internal hemorrhage is high, so we have to keep observing. We're keeping him comfortable, but… there is a chance that your father will not make it through the night."

The woman's shoulders sagged as she attempted to take in the news. "C-can I see him?"

He nodded, motioning for her to follow him.

As she got up, she cleared her throat. "You said there was a woman making a 911 call about him?"

"Yes, apparently. A detective for the National City police called it in."

"National City…" The woman frowned, connecting the city to the scene from earlier. "Supergirl was in here. Was… Was that the woman? In the wheelchair? The detective?"

"Well, she might have been." The doctor nodded as he led her through a maze of corridors. "She and another woman were admitted shortly before your father."

"And he was shot." The woman clenched her hands into fists, connecting the dots. "With a gun. And a police detective called it in…"

"I don't know the details of the case, I'm afraid." The doctor seemed oblivious to the rage that was filling the woman, making her see red. That detective had  _shot him_. He may not have been the perfect father, but he didn't deserve to die at the hands of police violence.

No wonder that woman – whether she was the detective or not – had been terrified of being faced with the consequences of their actions.

"I want to see her."

"The detective? I'm afraid that's not possible."

"Then I want to see the other woman." The woman was decisive. She had to know what the hell happened. "If my  _father_  is going to die, I at least insist on knowing what happened!"

"There will be a police investigation, ma'am." The doctor tried to calm her down as he stopped at a door. "You'll know all the details soon enough. This is your father's room. He's not here right now, as he's still recovering from the surgery, but they'll bring him here soon, you can wait for him."

She thanked him weakly and slipped into the room, but watched him as he walked away through the corridor, that seemed otherwise deserted.

Checking if anybody was paying attention to her, she walked over to the nurse station on the floor, seeing one young-looking nurse sitting on a chair. She tried to look casual as she walked past the glass window, moving to the other side of the corridor.

She slipped into an empty hospital room, checking if there were any cameras, and reached for the 'help' button on the side of the bed. Buzzing it, she ran out of the room, and fished her phone out of her pocket, pretending to be taking a call while pacing through the hallway.

She passed the young nurse taking her time to get to the room in distress, and sped up the second she was behind her. She didn't have a lot of time.

She ran into the nurse's station and activated the computer. Recent admissions…

Bingo. Three of them.

Her father, some woman named Margaret Sawyer and some woman named Alexandra Danvers. Sawyer had been released according to one quick click, so it was Alexandra Danvers left here. Currently in surgery, being moved to room 52.

That was all she needed to know, as she closed the window and slipped out of the station, her phone latched back onto her ear as she headed back into her father's room.

Whoever Alexandra Danvers was, she'd better have a good explanation as to why she or her friend had shot her father. And if she didn't… She would pay.

* * *

When Maggie woke up again, she was met with a bright light shining in her eyes. She winced against it, a pounding in her head making it hard to get her bearings.

Someone above her talked – way too loud. "She's awake."

"Maggie." The detective craned her head up to see J'onn standing by her side. Though her vision wasn't all that sharp, her face morphed into a weak smile at the familiar face.  _She was back. Everything was finally going to be okay._

"Maggie, can you hear me?"

She flinched again, clearing her throat weakly. "C-could you turn off the light?"

"We're taking a look at your shoulder, to see how bad it is. I can't switch it off right now." She felt him take her hand in hers. "But I'm here, okay?"

She nodded, clutching his hand, and wincing at the movement of her head.

"Do you remember what happened?"

Maggie swallowed thickly, trying to distract herself from the pain by talking. It usually worked whenever she was emotional after a case. Talking herself through it. "T-there uh… There was a bear. We were hiking, it made us fall down a slope. A-Alex…" Her eyes widened. " _Alex_ …"

"She's going to be okay. I don't know any details, but she's stable." J'onn interrupted quickly, before Maggie could get worked up.

"… She was hurt. Then there was this guy, Laurent – the owner of the cabin…"

Maggie proceeded to retell the entire story as much as she could. J'onn had the mind to start recording the story so she wouldn't have to tell it twice.

Near the end, when Maggie was telling him how she'd seen Alex lying motionlessly in Kara's arms, she got overrun by emotions. Thick tears streaming down her face. J'onn tried to comfort her, but Maggie was in another place entirely. "A-and I  _saw_ Alice… At the hospital. She was there, sitting there, I'm… I think I'm going crazy."

"It might be a side effect of the burns, Maggie. It was likely something venomous, maybe it causes hallucinations."

Maggie took comfort in that fact. He was right, it was probably just her mind playing tricks on her. There had been nobody there, it was just her body coping with the trauma.

"I'm going to get a team on analyzing your burns. In the meantime, there's not much you can do, so  _rest_ …" He looked at her sternly. "…I'll send your statement to the local PD over there, to put in their records. And I'll try to get an update on Alex."

"Thanks, J'onn." Maggie whispered gratefully. He nodded, and switched the light above her off, leaving her in near darkness. "Call out if you need anything. I'll be here."

Maggie knew that she wasn't going to sleep. There were too many thoughts running through her head. But instead, she tried to focus on the fact that Alex was going to be okay. That the nightmare would be over soon.

And that was enough to slightly ease her conscience.

* * *

Finally, Kara heard the news that Alex was out of surgery, and recovering.

She was quickly sent to the right floor, and opened the door to room 52. Alex's room.

Kara had seen a lot of gruesome things in her life. Crimes that she'd failed to stop, people that she'd failed to save… Not every Supergirl rescue had resulted in success. She'd seen dead people. She'd seen horrible injuries.

But nothing prepared her for the blow to the gut of seeing her sister lying in a bed, the sheet going flat where her right leg and foot should have been.

Kara felt like she couldn't breathe.

And she vowed to kill the alien with her bare hands once she'd get alone time with him.

But for now, she settled on racing to her sister's side, stroking her hair and whispering about how everything was going to be okay.

Because if she'd repeat it enough, Kara hoped that she herself was going to be able to believe it too.

After a few minutes of silence, a weak groan came from the bed, and Kara's eyes wetted with new unshed tears as she watched her sister wake up, her eyes fluttering, before opening completely.

"Hey…" Kara smiled, trying to stay strong. "It's okay, you're safe now."

"Mhmm…" Alex groaned again, a wince overtaking her features. "Hurts…"

"What hurts?" Kara leaned in closer to push a loose strand of hair back behind Alex's ear.

"My leg…"

A second punch to the gut. Kara was speechless. She'd googled 'below the knee amputations', and some of the sites had mentioned something called 'phantom pain', but it broke Kara's heart to see her sister in pain – that she  _shouldn't feel_  at all.

She watched in horror as Alex moved her right hand up, and tried to reach for it to stop her, but it was too late.

Alex touched her leg lower and lower… until she finally stopped touching her leg.

Way too soon.

Her eyes widened, and her mouth dropped open.

If Kara had felt helpless in the waiting room, then this was absolute insanity. Because she knew that there was nothing she could say right now that could help her sister process this.

As she reached for the help button, there was a knock on the door. Grateful that somebody was coming to help Alex properly, she sprinted to the door and opened it.

She was surprised to see the woman from earlier, in the waiting room, standing in the doorway. With a smile on her face that seemed a little too forced and polite to be natural. Yet Kara dismissed it, as the woman was under a lot of pressure waiting for a loved one to be alright.

"Hi, sorry to bother you, Supergirl. But I think the woman from the reception – Rita? - was asking for you. Something about health forms."

"Oh, yes. Of course." Kara smiled weakly. "...But she just woke up, I need to get help first."

"I'll stay here with her and get a doctor. My father is still in surgery. It's the least I can do to repay you for everything you do. I'll make sure she has everything she needs."

"Thank you so much. I'm sorry, I didn't get your name…?"

"It's Alice." The woman smiled. "I'll take care of her, don't worry. You go fill out the forms."

Kara nodded gratefully, and walked off into the corridor.

Alice took a deep breath, as she closed the door behind her, finally alone with the woman that had tried to kill her father.

"Hello, miss Danvers."


	22. Chapter Twenty-two

Alex hadn't heard her come in.

She hadn't heard the entire exchange between her sister and the woman standing in the doorway, because her heart was beating in her throat, her blood was pulsing, thumping in her ears. She couldn't think. Because  _it was gone._

She'd thought about it a lot that night. Seeing the state her leg was in. Alex  _knew_  about the risk of infection, about the possibility of something so bad that they couldn't save her leg.

But realizing that she was never going to get it back…

What if Maggie didn't want to marry someone who couldn't even walk properly.

Maggie needed somebody strong by her side. Someone who could hold her, who could stand by her side as she fought aliens and raided safehouses. Who could pull her away from danger, or jump in front of a bullet for her. Not… not this.

"Hello, miss Danvers."

Alex looked up, thinking that it was a nurse coming to check on her. She already had a reply on the tip of her tongue, about her wanting to be left alone.

But… Then she saw the woman.

And much like Maggie, Alex's reaction was pure confusion and panic.

" _You…_ " Alex whispered.

Alice frowned at the recognition on the woman's face; she'd never seen her before. Despite the slight physical resemblance to herself, Alice wanted nothing to do with her. Instead, she took a few steps to stand next to Alex's bedside.

"My father is here, in the hospital. He was shot."

Alex felt her throat go dry, but didn't respond, as Alice continued her measured statement. "…They say he might not make it through the night. Apparently, a detective from National City called it in."

She leaned forward, until her face was almost touching Alex's.

And the agent was all too aware of how the woman put her hand down on the bed  _exactly_  where her right foot should have been.

"…So I want to know what happened. Now. Because if my father dies, miss Danvers, I promise you and your friend will regret it if you had anything to do with it."

Alex was completely baffled and mute. How Alice was alive, here, after seeing her body in the crawlspace of the basement. Had it all been an illusion? Had it been a dream after all?

Had she and Maggie hallucinated and shot the man anyway?

_No_ , her mind immediately assured her.  _That would be impossible._

"I don't know what happened to your father, Alice."

The woman's eyes narrowed to slits. "How do you know my name?!"

"Because I know what happened on that night in February." Alex winced as she shifted, so she could sit more upright, ignoring the pain shooting through her chest. "… You and Finley."

Alice physically took a step back at that. "How do you know about Finley?!"

Alex laughed weakly. "I heard the recordings you made. The book he wrote about that evening."

"What the hell are you talking about…" Alice whispered. Her earlier hatred and composure had made room for absolute terror. She obviously hadn't expected Alex to know all of this.

Especially since Alex – up until a few minutes ago – had considered her very much dead.

"Were you at your father's cabin in February, looking for Julia Aubert?"

"No, I wasn't. I haven't had any contact with my father for the last six months. And… Julia has been dead since January. She died from cancer in the hospital."

Alex's heart stopped. Because the woman looked so sincere, she knew for a fact that she was telling the truth.

Alice crossed her arms and dropped down onto the chair. "What are you talking about? Why are you telling me these things?"

Trying hard to get the professional agent in her to surface, Alex took a deep breath and looked at her. "Your girlfriend, Finley."

"She's been missing since February."

Alex nodded, trying to connect whatever dots she could to make sense of it. "The twelfth."

"How do you know that?" Alice seemed as surprised as she was. If the situation had been any different, Alex would have laughed at how completely confused the two of them were at each other's stories.

"Your father wrote a book about the two of you spending a night at the cabin on the twelfth. You died during the night." Alex sighed, trying to think about how she'd formulate the next part of her story. "… We spent the night at your father's cabin, me and my girlfriend. And we found your body, in a crawlspace in the basement. You'd been dead for some time."

"It's been years since I've been in that cabin." Alice frowned. "The last time I saw Finley was the night before she disappeared. Nothing was off, we just… Lived our lives. And then I woke up, and… she was gone."

"Was there anything off about that day?"

Alice nodded quickly. "Yes, I… I skipped a day. I thought it was Sunday, but people were calling me into work, on the thirteenth. I think I slept through an entire day."

"The day she disappeared? The twelfth?"

"I woke up, and I was in pain… I thought it was a hangover, but my entire body was bruised. I couldn't remember what happened. But when Finley didn't come home that evening and didn't answer my calls, I went to the police. I told them about the day I lost, but I couldn't explain where I'd been, and they never found out what happened."

Alex closed her eyes, taking a deep breath and leaning back against the pillows. "I know what happened."

Because  _obviously._ It hit Alex in the face that she hadn't figured it out sooner.

The only reason why Alice could be standing here in front of her,  _and_ be dead at the same time in the basement, was because the dead body hadn't been real.

Alice and Finley had gone to the cabin, spent the horror of a night there, and somewhere during the evening, the alien had wiped her memory and taken her place, only to die in Finley's arms.

And apparently, the same must have happened to Julia on the night Laurent assumed she disappeared.

Come to think of it, if the alien had been a shapeshifter, he could have been anyone at any point in their own evening. He'd been the burnt shape of Julia, he'd been Alice's dead body…

He could have been Laurent.

God, he'd probably been the bear too.

Everything suddenly clicked into place, as her eyes widened. "I need to make a call. Do you have a phone?!"

Alice seemed to hesitate. "I…"

"It could save your father!"

Honestly, Alex had no idea what had happened to Laurent. For all she knew, especially with the knowledge that their alien was a shapeshifter, he could have been posing as Laurent and attacked Maggie, causing her to shoot him anyway. She hadn't seen anything after the water. The only thing she vaguely remembered was Maggie holding her.

But it seemed to work, as Alice reached for her phone and handed it to her, getting up. "I'm… I'm sorry I lunged at you like that. I-I just want to know what happened to Finley… And to my father."

"Was he a good father to you?" Was the last question Alex wanted to pose.

Alice smiled weakly. "Laurent and Julia considered me their daughter. Julia was already ill by the time I came into the picture, but Laurent never stopped fighting for her. And I admire him for that. He was there for me when I needed him, even though he had so much on his plate. It was pressure for the both of us. Especially when he wasn't around when she died. He'd completely distanced himself from us, and he stayed in that house in Montana for months, until now." She sighed. "I don't blame him for leaving. I just wish he didn't."

Alex nodded, as Alice turned around and left her room.

She quickly dialed Kara's number, and pressed the phone to her ear. "Kara, you need to fly back to the DEO."

"What? Alex, what are you doing with a phone? You need to-…"

Alex interrupted her sister's protests quickly. "… Kara, that alien was a shapeshifter, and he can erase memories. You need to figure out what it is."

After that, she ended the call, leaving her sister a sputtering mess.

"Y-yeah. Okay."

Kara stared at the phone in her hands, baffled at the conversation she'd just had with her sister. But she wasted no time in calling J'onn to give him the update.

* * *

 

"Shapeshifting, acid  _and_  wiping memories? That's a pretty unique combination." J'onn said, moving Kara's videocall window aside so he could scour the database. The clock in the corner said that it was six in the morning. Soon, the agents not on nightshift would be pouring in to start their day, unaware of the horrors of that night.

"I found it. The name of the species is Magh'rah. Civilized reptilians that can morph into any shape. Their home galaxy is a few thousand light years away from here, only a few have made it to this solar system. I've never encountered one in person, and according to our database, there currently is only one of them on this planet."

"Well, we found it." Kara sighed. "Anything else we know?"

"Nothing much, but their home planet is situated in a system that has spawned many aliens known on this Earth for their artistic integrity and creativity."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

J'onn grunted. "They're artists. Painters, philosophers, writers. They have infiltrated this planet with their knowledge ever since humanity began …" He trailed off. "How is Alex?"

"She sounded like she really wanted to catch that alien. The local PD should be on their way to take her statement, but…"

"The local PD isn't equipped for the case. I'm sending agents from the DEO to handle the investigation. I'll make a call to the president to get her blessing."

Kara nodded. "And… How is Maggie?"

"She's resting. We haven't been able to analyze the burns, but we're losing time to treat her without lasting damage. It's good that we've identified the species, but because there's so little known about it, I don't know if it'll tell us much about the nature of its acid."

"If you send me a list of aliens that are from planets close to his, I can try and see if they know something. But I can't keep flying from Montana to National City, J'onn. It takes too much time."

J'onn nodded. "I'll see if we can move Alex here with a medevac. In the meantime, stay with her until local PD gets there, and wait for us. Tell them it's a federal case."

"I don't have a badge." Kara frowned, not seeing how she could possibly convince the police officers that she had any authority whatsoever.

"Supergirl, your badge is on your chest. Also, you can fly, for Rao's sake."

"Oh." Kara winced. "Right, yes." She grew serious again. "I'll take care of it, J'onn."

"Good. It's almost morning, I'll assemble a team of agents right away, they should be there in about three hours."

Kara nodded, and disconnected the call after saying goodbye. She super-sped back into the corridor, just in time to see a doctor exiting Alex's room.

The blonde nodded politely, and thanked the doctor as she slipped back into her sister's room.

Seeing the woman from the waiting room sitting by her side. Rao, they looked alike. Now that she'd seen it, she couldn't unsee the resemblance.

"Supergirl!" Alex said as soon as she saw her. "Did you pass the message?"

"Uh…" Kara eyed the other woman, not really feeling like discussing sensitive DEO information with a stranger in the room. Alex sensed her discomfort, and threw an apologetic look towards Alice, who got the hint immediately and got up. "I'll give you two some privacy, and I'll go check on my father."

The two sisters watched her leave, as Alex turned to Kara. "And?"

"The DEO is taking over the investigation into the alien. We managed to identify it too. It comes from a galaxy of artists."

"Artists…?" Alex frowned at that, until she winced. "Y-you mean…"

"Painters, philosophers, writers…" Kara copied the list J'onn had told her. But Alex was already too far off in her own thoughts, apparently coming to another realization. "What? What is it?"

"Writers…" Alex whispered to herself. "A  _writer_."

An  _author_.


	23. Chapter Twenty-three

Kara's instructions had been clear – wait for the DEO agents, and stay with her sister.

She'd filled the long wait by listening to Maggie's statement about the events of the night, that J'onn had sent her on her phone. Sitting by her sister's bedside and holding her hand, Kara's stomach was in knots as she finally heard about the horrors they'd gone through.

Now that she knew at least a big part of the whole story, her worries for both women skyrocketed. Especially with the other woman – Alice – being around the hospital. Kara didn't like it. At all.

A knock on the door pulled her from her thoughts. Kara looked up to see a nurse escort two men in black into the room. She recognized the men immediately; they were DEO agents. Not quite as high in the ranks as Alex was, but she'd been on missions with them numerous times. Roth and Jacobs, Kara remembered.

They must be the cavalry J'onn sent to investigate the case.

"Supergirl." Roth greeted her politely.

Jacobs walked over to Alex, and shook his head sadly at the sight of her lost leg. "Damn. Transtibial. Richards had the same thing when he was mauled by that Djinn a few months ago."

"I remember that." Roth agreed, sharing the same pitiful look.

Kara looked up. "Did he recover?"

"Richards?" Jacobs nodded quickly. "Yeah. DEO biolabs are working on all sorts of prosthetics. You can't even tell it's a fake now."

Kara sighed in relief, but tried not to show to the men how nervous she'd been to hear the answer.

"We have orders to get Danvers on the flight we came from, to get her back to Headquarters. I'll go arrange the transfer." Jacobs said, before walking out of the room.

"Did you get Maggie's statement too?"

"We did. We analyzed it on the flight to establish a timeline. But they split up a lot, it's hard to tell what happened when. Though, with the alien being a shapeshifter, it's safe to say that he was just trying to scare them."

" _Just trying to scare them?_ " Kara repeated with an indignant huff. "They almost died, both of them! It's clearly more than just a scare tactic!"

" _Inspiration_."

Both Kara and Roth turned around at the one word coming from the bed behind them. Alex had her eyes open and trained on the ceiling, but her reply hadn't been lost on either of them.

"What do you mean?"

"The Magh'rah." Alex cleared her throat and winced. "…Their home planet has a sister planet that is nearly identical. That species has a few hundred aliens on this planet, including one in National City."

"How do you know that, Danvers?" Roth asked, folding his arms.

Alex smiled weakly. "A friend of Maggie's from the alien bar. She was a brilliant artist, could draw and paint things that happened hundreds of years ago exactly from memory. But… She could only do  _that_."

"Do what?"

"Paint from memory. They're brilliant at art, but they have to have external inspiration. Otherwise they can't do it. They can't make things up, their minds aren't built for it." Alex leaned forward to sit upright again. "I know what happened last night."

"I'm listening." Roth raised an eyebrow, as both he and Kara looked completely confused.

Alex sighed. "Laurent didn't write his books himself. He had the Magh'rah write books  _for_  him about stories he'd witnessed during his previous years here on Earth. In return, the alien got the permission to shapeshift into Laurent's body and share his life."

"How do you know that?" Roth seemed baffled.

"Alice didn't realize it, but she told me earlier. She had respect for her father and loved her, but that's not what  _we_  heard last night. Because there were two different Laurents: one that loved her and one that didn't."

"You lost me, Alex." Kara shook her head.

Alex smiled again. "The alien fell in love with Alice when he first saw her. He wanted to get to know her, and started writing all of the books that revolved around her. He took Laurent's place as much as he could to be close to her. And when Laurent realized what was happening and he tried to back out, the alien felt like their contract had been breached, and started putting Laurent through hell."

"Like kidnapping Julia?"

"Julia was never kidnapped. It was a trick the alien played on him. Neither was Alice. He just wanted to drive Laurent to insanity."

Roth grunted. "What about Alice's girlfriend?"

"He only knew about Finley in February, when they came to visit. He wanted her out of the picture to have Alice all by himself, so he pulled the same trick on them, scaring them and finally making Finley believe that Alice was dead."

"Finley was there last night." Kara said. Alex frowned. "What? Where?"

"She jumped in front of Maggie to save her. She was the one that shot Laurent, because she thought that he'd killed Alice."

"S-she's dead?" Alex's face fell. Kara looked down in sadness, and nodded.

"Oh god…" Alex whispered. Finley had thought that Alice was dead, so she sacrificed herself. And Alice… She didn't even know that her girlfriend had been alive all that time.

"So, Danvers, you're saying that alien kept both Finley and Laurent a prisoner in those woods for revenge, because they stood between him and Alice?"

Alex nodded. That was what she could interpret. The only thing she didn't know was why the Magh'rah had dragged Maggie and her into it, instead of killing them immediately or keeping them away from the cabin.

"I'm getting you back to National City." Kara smiled at her sister. "You're going to have to stay in the med bay of the DEO, but…"

"I want to go home." Alex nodded, interrupting her sister, before grabbing her arm. "Kara, how is Maggie? Do you know anything else?"

"They're still working on the burns, Alex. They don't know how bad it is."

"Actually…" Roth stepped into the conversation. "…They've taken acid samples from the Magh'rah. They've transported him to a local secure facility and locked him up, the samples are already on their way to headquarters."

Alex sighed in relief. Maybe they had to do a skin graft, and there would probably be some scars, but at least she was going to be okay. If she could get her hands on the samples, if she could get into her lab…

Kara was apparently close to reading her mind, as she narrowed her eyes. "Don't even think about it. You're going back to the DEO to rest. If you won't stay down, I'll freeze you to your bed. And I mean it."

Alex grunted, but surrendered immediately with a wave of her hands.

* * *

 

A few hours later, Kara was carrying Alex into the DEO from the balcony. The blonde was exhausted from the constant fear, the exertion of flying at the speed of light, and the rollercoaster of emotions of that night. But she couldn't stop until she was sure that there was no more danger, that she wouldn't wake up to hear that someone was dead, or that something had happened to either of them.

She was confident that Roth and Jacobs had everything they needed to take the case and close it, but to be honest, she really didn't care about repercussions as long as she knew that Alex and Maggie were okay.

An entire medical team was waiting for her for the second time that night, as Alex was hurried off to the med bay, despite her vocal protests that she was fine.

She knew that the doctors wanted to check Alex over completely to verify that the doctors in Montana had done a proper surgery, so the agent would be out for some time. Since the doctors would operate on Maggie to treat the burns soon enough, Kara figured that her work was done.

Yet despite her exhaustion, she knew that there was one thing left to do.

One last trip back.

* * *

 

"Alice?"

"Supergirl." The woman seemed surprised to see her, as she was sat by her father's bedside, holding his hand. She looked like she'd been crying. "What are you still doing here? I thought your two friends were back in National City?"

"They are. They're stable. But since Alex and Maggie couldn't… I'm here to check on your father and you."

"Me?" Alice chuckled weakly. "There's nothing wrong with me."

"How is he doing?" Kara walked over to her and put a hand on her shoulder. Alice sighed. "He's… out of the woods for now. They're still afraid of internal bleeding, but his vitals are 'promising', that's what they said."

"That's good." The blonde smiled weakly, before she grew serious again. "Alice, I need to tell you something."

The short-haired woman turned her head so she was facing her, frowning. "Okay?"

"Finley was there last night, when Alex and Maggie were at the cabin." Kara knew there was no easy way to say it, so it was better to just rip the band-aid off quickly. "… She was the one that shot Laurent, because she thought he'd killed you on February 12th."

"What?" Alice's eyes went wide. "F-Finn is still alive?!"

Kara winced, and shook her head. "She's not. She thought you were dead, and when Maggie got attacked by the alien, she jumped in front of her. She got hit by a corrosive acid, there was nothing we could do."

"Oh… my god…" Alice sobbed, the tears falling down her cheeks immediately. " _No_ …"

"I'm so sorry, Alice." Kara sighed. "I wish I could tell you it was different. But… Maggie told me that her last words were that she loved you. And that she was going to be with you soon."

After that, the woman in front of her broke down completely. Kara tried to comfort her the best she could, but knew that she was distanced too much from the situation to be any help. Instead, she called for a nurse and quietly slipped out of the room, leaving the wailing woman behind.

* * *

 

When Maggie woke up, the first thing she noticed was a burning pain shooting through her arm, shoulder and chest. She opened her eyes slowly, seeing the thick bandages wrapped around the right side of her torso. " _Ugh…_ "

"It's second and third degree corrosive burns."

Maggie's head shot up at the sound, and she flinched as the pounding in her head made her remember that she did have a head injury too. But the voice had been unmistakably familiar.

"Alex?!"

The agent was propped up against a large set of pillows, lying on a bed to her right and watching her with such worry and love in her eyes, that it felt like Maggie's throat was closing.

"A-are you okay?" She croaked. Alex sighed, and chuckled weakly, as she shook her head. "…The acid wasn't poisonous, as we'd feared, but it-…"

" _Al._ " Maggie interrupted her with a frown. It was clear that Alex had avoided the topic of her, more focused on Maggie's wellbeing, but the detective was having none of it.

So after an unamused glare, Alex finally sighed. "I can't walk, Mags. I'll never be normal again. I'm...  _I'm…_ "

Maggie's annoyed gaze softened instantly, as she saw the tears making their way to Alex's cheeks, running down and dripping onto the covers below.

"Babe, what are you talking about?" Maggie frowned, before looking down her fiancée's body, and realizing what she'd meant.

"Oh,  _Al_ …"

Alex took the pitiful stare as a confirmation of what she already knew: Maggie would never want to stick with somebody that couldn't give her all that she needed, that she  _pitied_. Alex was never going to be able to pick her up, hold her…

When Maggie saw the fear and hurt in her girlfriend's eyes, she took a deep breath and yanked out the IV lodged in her hand before swinging her legs over the side of the bed.

"W-what are you doing?! No, Mags, don't-"

The detective ignored Alex's protests as she stumbled towards her bed and almost fell on top of her, her legs still unsteady and nausea settling in her stomach. But she ignored all of it, to caress her cheek with her good hand, and lean her forehead on hers.

"I  _love_  you so much, Alex. We're going to get through this."

She leaned forward to give her a careful kiss on the lips. For a second, Alex closed her eyes and was blissfully aware of how good it felt to be touching and kissing Maggie again. Though the doubt in the pit of her stomach didn't exactly go away, her mind kept on repeating what Maggie had said.  _We're going to get through it._

_Together._

She knew that the both of them were far from okay. That they'd wake up for the next months screaming, that they would cry themselves to sleep. But as long as Maggie was by her side, she knew that eventually, she would heal.

It was then, she realized why exactly the Magh'rah had decided to target them.

Because he'd seen true love in the both of them. The love he'd never get from Alice.

And like he had said to them when they first met him – there was no love without sacrifice.

Today it was their sleep, her leg, Maggie's arm.

Tomorrow would be something else.

But she'd gladly sacrifice all that she had if it could keep Maggie safe.

And that – nobody could take away from her.

* * *

 

**The End.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic gave me so many feels, guys. I want to thank you all once again for reading, leaving such wonderful reviews and supporting me through writing it. 
> 
> As I've mentioned previously, I make each chapter up as I go, so I was as surprised as you guys were to see that it all sort of turned out to make sense in the end. 
> 
> I love Sanvers, so expect more stories in the near future. Maybe even a continuation/sequel to this fic.
> 
> For now, once again, I love you guys.
> 
> Thanks for sticking with me.


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